Economists pushed back forecasts for a cut in Russia's benchmark rate today after the central bank said that inflation would slow to next year's target of 5 percent only in the second half.

Monetary-policy makers held the one-week auction rate, the benchmark introduced in September, at 5.5 percent at their meeting today, the Moscow-based central bank said today in a statement on its website. That matched the forecasts of all 23 economists in a Bloomberg survey.

Central bank Chairman Elvira Nabiullina, the former aide to President Vladimir Putin who took the post in June, is focused on taming consumer-price growth to help the economy, rather than rate cuts. Inflation was 6.5 percent from a year earlier as of Dec. 9, unchanged from November, according to the statement.