The CBI released the minutes of the MPC meeting held on 17 March 2020. Icelandair Group completed the sale of Icelandair Hotels. Eimskip adjusted its container sailing system. The number of overnight stays decreased by 12.7% YoY in February. The ISK depreciated by 11.9% against the euro in March. The GDM released a Quarterly Government Debt Management Prospect for Q2.

The ISK depreciated by 11.9% against the euro in March. At the end of the month, the euro stood at 156.2 ISK, compared to 139.6 at the end of February.

The MPC decided to begin direct purchases of Treasury bonds in the secondary market. The CPI based on prices in March increased 0.23% MoM, bringing the headline number to 2.1%. Icelandair group took mitigating actions because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Unemployment in February was 5.0% according to Statistics Iceland's Labour force survey.

The MPC lowered the Bank’s interest rates by 0.50 percentage points to mitigate economic impact of COVID-19 virus. The committee also decided to lower reserve requirements on deposit institutions to ease the liquidity position of the banking system. The number of foreign passenger from Iceland via Keflavik airport decreased by 11% YoY in February. Registered unemployment was 5.0% in Febuary, a YoY increase of 1.9 percentage points.

The current account surplus was ISK 172.5bn (5.8% of GDP) last year. The ISK depreciated by 2.3% against the euro in February. The real effective exchange rate in February was 1.2% lower than the same month the previous year.