Saturday, November 28 2015 16:12

ArmInfo. Due to the active transactions on the interbank forex market, the Armenian dram appreciated and retained its position till Thursday, but the sharp drop in the transactions on Friday resulted in the dram depreciation.  On November 23-27, the interbank forex market doubled the transactions amid the lack of transactions on NASDAQ OMX Armenia. As a result, the AMD/USD exchange rate rose from 473 AMD/$1 to 483 AMD/$1 on November 1-13 and stood at that level till November 20. It dropped to 481 AMD/$1 by November 26 and rose to 482 AMD/1USD on November 27.

According to the CBA press office, on November 23-27, NASDAQ OMX Armenia was absolutely passive. The transactions on the interbank forex market totaled $7.823 mln, forming the average exchange rate at the level of 481.76 AMD/1USD. The latest large interventions of the Central Bank were on November 13 - $19.6 mln, on October 2 - supposedly $6 mln, on September 19 - $22.2 mln and August 28 - $95 mln.

The source says that on November 23-27, on the intrabank currency market (transactions with customers) the banks bought $61.5 mln (26% drop versus the previous week) at the average exchange rate of 480.18 AMD/$1, and sold $72.9 mln (2% drop) at the average exchange rate of 482.17 AMD/$1. In the meantime, the banks bought 4.1 mln EUR (down 42%) at the average exchange rate of 509.23 AMD/1EUR, and sold 9.6 mln EUR (down 16.5%) at the exchange rate of 514.41 AMD/1EUR.  The banks also bought 913.9 mln RUR (down 17%) at the average exchange rate of 7.28 AMD/1RUR and sold 336.2 mln RUR (2% decline) at the exchange rate of 7.40 AMD/1RUR.

During the previous week (November 16-22) the Armenian banks provided AMD loans worth 46.3 bln AMD and USD loans worth $60.8 mln. As compared with the previous week (November 9-15), AMD loans decreased by 5.3% and the ones in terms of USD rose almost twofold.  

To recall, during the last months of 2014 the forex market of Armenia registered a sharp rise of the AMD/USD exchange rate - over 570 AMD/1USD. From October through December 17, 2014, AMD depreciated by almost 45% in the retail forex market of Armenia, then it appreciated by 25% on Dec 18-20, staring depreciating against on Dec 22.  On Dec 27, the average AMD/USD exchange rate was 470 AMD/$1, the AMD/EUR exchange rate was 574 AMD/1EUR, the AMD/RUR exchange rate was 8.7 AMD/1RUR.  Over 2014, NASDAQ OMX Armenia registered transactions worth a total of $744.5 mln, with the biggest amount falling on November ($117 mln). Over the year the exchange rate on NASDAQ OMX Armenia rose from 407.14 to 560 AMD/$1 (on Dec 17 the exchange rate rose by 22%), dropping to 470 AMD/$1 by Dec 27. In 2014, in the retail forex market of Armenia, the AMD depreciated against USD by 40%, with the maximum indicator (570 AMD) fixed on Dec 17 and the minimum (406 AMD) registered in July. In the course of the 9 months of 2015, in the retail forex market AMD appreciated from 477 to 473 against USD; from 571.5 to 532 against EUR, at the same time depreciating from 8.2 to 7.2 against RUR. In October, the average USD/AMD exchange rate was floating.  On October 30, it made up 473 AMD/1$. The national currency appreciated against EUR (520 AMD/1EUR) and appreciated against RUR (7.5 AMD/1RUR). In November the Armenian dram started showing signs of devaluation again, depreciating against USD (482 AMD/$1) as of November 27, but at the same time appreciating against EUR (512 AMD/1EUR) and against RUR (7.4 AMD/1RUR).