Central banks watch: ECB, SNB, BoJ, BoC in focus for comments and BoE and RBA for minutes; Hungary, Turkey and Egypt to set rates

ECB President Mario Draghi will start off the week with his remarks at an event over the weekend, BoC's Stephen Poloz and RBA's Glenn Stevens will speak on Monday (20 April) while SNB Chair Thomas Jordan and BoJ Deputy Governor Hiroshi Nakaso will be on tape on Friday (24 April).

The 2015 spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington from 17-19 April will also be an event to watch, especially in the background of Greece's troubled relations with its financiers and the ongoing war in Yemen.

The Reserve Bank of Australia will release the minutes of its last meeting on Tuesday (21 April) and the Bank of England will do so on Wednesday.

The RBA will be watched for its currency remarks as well as for cues regarding the next likely cut in interest rate. The BoE is unlikely to have had any vote split at the last meeting but as the central bank has only recently moderated its slightly hawkish stance, the likelihood of a return or further inclination towards the dovish side will likely reflect in the comments of the MPC members.

Rate decisions

Only a few emerging market economies are there in the rate setters' list this week such as Hungary, Turkey, Paraguay and Egypt and all of them are in an easing cycle.

Hungary at its 24 March decision had lowered the main rate to 1.95% from 2.1% and some analysts expect it to ease it further to 1.8% at Tuesday's review.

Paraguay too cut the benchmark interest rate at the March meeting by 25 basis points to 6.5% but market expectations are for a hold decision on Tuesday.

Inflation has fallen to a near two-year low of 2.6% in the Latin American country while the GDP growth rate has averaged 4.3% over 2014, compared to an average 14.3% over the four quarters of 2013. Such a scenario supports further easing of rates there but the central bank is likely to wait for some time for the recent cuts to start yielding results.

Turkey will set its monetary policy on Wednesday. The TCMB had lowered the rate at its January and February meetings by 25 basis points each but left it steady at 7.5% at the March review.

With the inflation rate edging up to 7.6% by March from 7.24% in January and the annual GDP growth rate rising to 2.6% by Q4 last year from 1.9% in Q3, the case is for another month of hold decision.

Egypt at its January meeting reversed half of the 100 basis points rate hike in July last year that had taken the rate to 9.25% but left the rate at 8.75% at the February review.

There was no rate meeting in March and when it meets on 23 April, the Egyptian central bank faces a mixed scenario as the inflation rate has increased sharply to 11.5% in March from 10.56% in February while the Q4 annual GDP growth rate has slowed to 4.3% from 6.8% in Q3.