AKIPRESS.COM - Mongolia's central bank has raised the benchmark interest rate by 1 percentage point to 11 percent.

The Bank of Mongolia said the country's gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter expanded 6.4 percent year on year to reach 12.8 trillion Mongolian tugriks (about 5 billion U.S. dollars).

The growth surpassed expectations "thanks to fast recovery in commodity prices in the global market," but there are nevertheless some external risks, Xinhua reported citing the central bank.

The central bank is trying to maintain economic growth and stabilizing inflation around the target of rate of 8 percent in the medium term amid external uncertainties, the bank's president Nadmid Bayartsaikhan told reporters after a meeting of its monetary policy council.

The annual inflation was at 6.3 percent in October.

The Bank of Mongolia decided to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 10 percent in its monetary policy meeting in September, saying that it was confident that inflation was near the target of 8 percent.