Last week’s highlights
The number of foreign passengers to Iceland via Keflavík Airport, published last week, indicates that the tourism industry has returned to pre-pandemic levels. Almost 243,000 foreign passengers left Iceland via Keflavík Airport in August, which is 3% fewer than in August 2019, the year before the pandemic hit. This is the second month in a row that the number is close to the same month in 2019.
Registered unemployment was 3.1% in August, 1.4 percentage points lower than in August 2021. Unemployment is now roughly at pre-pandemic levels.
The Central Bank of Iceland published the minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee 22-23 August. All five committee members agreed that the CBI’s key rate should be raised further and an increase in the range of 0.5-1.0 percentage points was discussed. All members voted in favour of a 0.75 pp increase, although one member would have preferred to raise rates by 1 pp. The CBI’s key rate (the seven-day term deposit rate) is 5.5% after the increase.
The week ahead
On Wednesday, the CBI releases payment intermediation data.
