The Belgian ten-year interest rate is approaching 1%, 0.955% to be precise, although in mid-December, the interest rate was not above 0.5%.
The cost of borrowing is now more expensive – not good news for those who wish to take out a mortgage or for the government finances, with the Debt Agency intending to raise some €34 billion to aid ongoing repayment of the federal debt this year.
Although economists had predicted a rate increase for 2018, the pace of this increase has somewhat surprised them. Moreover there is an identical trend in Europe and the United States, with investors no doubt anticipating a squeeze on the monetary policy of central banks.
We must go back to February 2017 to find a comparable ten-year interest rate. At the time, Donald Trump had just been inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States, which brought a wave of optimism to the financial markets.
