Friday, December 26 2014 16:41
On Dec 26 banks bought whole amount of USD offered by Central Bank on interbank forex market, with no transactions registered at NASDAQ OMX Armenia
ArmInfo. On Dec 26, Armenia's Central Bank sold banks $2mln, i.e. the total amount offered. The press service of the CB reports that the average AMD/USD exchange rate on the interbank forex market rose to 463.78 AMD/1 USD, with the cut-off price rising to 463.10 AMD/1USD. No transactions were carried out at NASDAQ OMX Armenia.
Since the launch of its daily interventions - from Dec 8 through Dec 26 - the CB has sold on the interbank forex market a total of $52.7mln: $6mln a day Dec 8-12, $4mln a day Dec 15-17, $1.7mln Dec 20, $1mln Dec 22, and $2mln Dec 23-26. During this period the average rate first rose from 456.63 AMD to 570.58 AMD per 1 USD, then dropped to 446.76 AMD/1 USD on Dec 20. On Dec 22 it started rising again and made up 463.78 AMD/1 USD on Dec 25. The cut-off price rose from 455 to 567.65 AMD/$1, then dropped to 445 AMD/$1 on Dec 20, but by Dec 26 it rose to 463.10 AMD/$1.
From Oct through Dec 17 AMD dropped against USD by 45%, Dec 18-20 it grew by 25%. On Dec 22 it started dropping again. On Dec 26, at 4:30 pm, the rate was 464 AMD against 1 USD, 567 AMD against 1 EUR, 8.7 AMD against RUR. On Dec 20 the rates were 455 AMD, 555 AMD and 7.8 AMD, respectively, versus 570 AMD, 712 AMD and 8.6 AMD, respectively, on Dec 17.
According to the CBA's statement dated 8 December 2014, on 8 December, the Central Bank of Armenia launched daily interventions to restore the balance in the exchange market and the soften currency fluctuations. The interventions will last till the end of 2014. The CBA will continue announcing the ceiling of daily sale amounts till the end of the year to normalize the situation in the exchange market of Armenia. According to the source, the CB will be publishing foreign exchange operations to ensure transparency in the financial market of Armenia. The daily intervention amounts will be reduced gradually until the national currency exchange rate is balanced. In particular, during the first week (8-12 December) the daily interventions were $6 mln. Afterwards, the daily interventions were gradually reduced to 4 mln USD and then 2 mln USD and they will be brought to zero by the end of the year. Along with this, on Dec 17, the CB toughened the forex reserve ratio from 12% to 24%, and the banks place the "reserve" funds at the CB entirely in terms of Armenian dram. On Dec 3, the CB raised the Lombard repo rates from 10.25 to 21%. On Dec 23, the CB raised the refinancing rate from 6.75 to 8.5%. Along with this, the forex reserve ratio was decreased to 20% and the Lombard repo rate was also decreased to 20%.
On Dec 26 (at 4:30 pm) AMD/USD buying/selling rates on the interbank forex market made up 459/468 AMD/1 USD, AMD/EUR rates - 557/577 AMD/1 EUR, AMD/RUR rates - 8.35/9.05 AMD/1 RUR. At NASDAQ OMX Armenia, from June through December 26, foreign exchange operations amounted to $406.2 million drams with the exchange rate growing from 407.14 to 560 AMD/1 USD, then dropping to 442.44 AMD/1USD and rising to 460.34 AMD/1USD on Dec 25. The transactions in November alone totaled nearly $117 million drams. On 1-5 Dec, interbank market of foreign exchange operations registered a record-breaking indicator - $59.3 million. To satisfy the banks' demand for USD, the CBA introduced long-term (3-6 months) forex swaps in early December.
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