Monday, February 7 2011 18:38
Central Bank of Armenia is going to consistently implement its economy dedollarization policy
ArmInfo. The policy of Armenia's Central Bank to toughen the monetary credit terms and to dedollarize the economy will foster the stability of the national currency, Head of the Monetary Credit Policy Department of the CB Artur Stepanyan said during a press-conference today.
When asked to comment on the CB's interference in the rate fixing on the currency market, Stepanyan said that the CB's currency interventions are aimed at alleviating exchange rate fluctuations.
To remind, according to the Government's anti-crisis policy, Mar 3 2009 Armenia switched from fixed to floating exchange rate. This resulted in AMD depreciation and intensive dollarization.
Despite the CB's efforts to dedollarize the economy, foreign exchange loans still prevail in the loan books of Armenian banks and credit companies. Nevertheless, in Dec 2010 dedollarization rate dropped by 0.6% due to 5% growth in AMD deposits and 4% growth in foreign exchange deposits. In Dec 2009 AMD deposits grew by 23.7%, foreign exchange deposits by 2.7%. As a result, dedollarization rate dropped by 4.6%. After the Mar crisis, the share of USD deposits grew to 70% but in the summer 2010 it was already 45%.
According to experts, the average monthly amount of transactions on NASDAQ-OMX (Armenia) is $60mln-70mln, 60% of which is carried out by the CB.