TUNIS  - Tunisia's central bank said on Monday that the time was right to issue a planned Eurobond worth $1 billion to finance the budget and balance of payments deficits.

It also said on Monday that it had kept its key interest rate unchanged at 5.75 percent.

The bond issue was announced late last year and was originally expected in March.

The North African country has previously said it needed $3 billion of loans to finance its budget deficit of 36 billion dinar ($14.07 billion) in 2018.

"The current situation is appropriate to resort to the global financial market to meet financing needs, especially in light of the increasing pressure on foreign currency assets and the liquidity of the internal financial market," the bank said in statement.

It did not give a specific date for the bond issue.

Tunisia forecasts the budget deficit will fall to 4.9 percent of gross domestic product in 2018, from about 6 percent in 2017. Tunisia aims to raise GDP growth to about 3 percent next year from 2.3 percent last year.

Monday's decision to keep interest rates on hold comes after the International Monetary Fund pushed for a rise in interest rates as inflation reached a record 7.7 percent in April.

($1 = 2.5588 Tunisian dinars)

(Reporting by Tarek Amara Editing by Catherine Evans) ((Aidan.Lewis@tr.com; +216-29850352;))