budapest feb 3 reuters  the czech crown firmed on thursday on expectations that the central bank would deliver another hefty interest rate hike later in the day to push the crucial twoweek repo rate to its highest level in two decades central european central banks have been tightening monetary policy since last year to tame unruly inflation a move that has supported the regions currencies the crown gained 017 and was trading at 24173 per euro ahead of the central banks meeting where nine of 12 analysts in a reuters poll expect a 75 basispoints raise putting the key twoweek repo rate at 450 the market according to the forward rate agreements fra seemed to be pricing in even heftier move by a full percentage point commerzbank expects a 75 basispoint hike but would not entirely rule out a 100bp hike as core inflation accelerated surprisingly sharply in december some czech central bankers have signalled that thursdays hike could be the last in the line of stronger moves started in september the board has raised the main rate by a total of 300 basis points in the last three meetings including a 125 basispoints hike in november which was its strongest in 24 years the hungarian forint firmed 016 to 35440 trading at a twoweek high after the central bank left its oneweek deposit rate unchanged at 43 after raising it by 30 basis points at last weeks tender the central bank uses the oneweek deposit facility to tackle shortterm market volatility the polish zloty was stable holding on to its recent gains which were sparked by hawkish comments from the central bank governor geopolitical tensions however could weigh on the currency bank millennium wrote in a note the us decision to send additional troops to poland and romania increases tension and fosters the depreciation of the zloty they wrote the united states will send nearly 3000 extra troops to poland and romania to shield eastern europe from a potential spillover from the crisis over the massing of russian troops near ukraine us officials said on wednesday russia has denied plans to invade ukraine read more most stocks in the region were higher with budapest bux adding 04 while prague px gained 034 bucharest beti was 037 higher but warsaw wig20 bucked the trend and slid 046 additional reporting by robert muller in prague and pawel florkiewicz in warsaw editing by aditya soni