ArmInfo. Enhanced activity at interbank forex market throughout this week, which ensured amount of $8.450 mln transactions, is strengthening Armenian dram. Meanwhile, NASDAQ OMX Armenia ensured several fold fewer amounts of transactions- only $200 thousand. It is noteworthy that the Central Bank of Armenia has not interfered and has not made any interventions since the beginning of this year. As a result, in Q1 2016, AMD devaluated against USD to 496 AMD/$1 (February 12) and then stood at initial 482AMD/$1 on March 25. By April 2, AMD appreciated against USD to 480.5 AMD/$1, and then started depreciating again to 484.5 AMD/$1 by April 8. By April 15 AMD revaluated to 481 AMD/$1 with following strengthening to 479 AMD/$1 by April 29. However, independent experts say the AMD/USD exchange rate may rise to 540-550 AMD/$1 by late 2016, amid the financial and economic crisis in Russia and the sliding prices of oil and crude metals, which is one of the key export items of Armenia.
The CBA press office has told ArmInfo that NASDAQ OMX Armenia was active only on Monday throughout the week, ensuring a total amount of $200 thousand transactions. At the same time the interbank forex market continues actively operating ensuring on April 25-29 a total amount of $8.450 million transactions (45.5% weekly drop from previous $15.5 mln) at the average exchange rate of 480.55 AMD/1USD. Maximum amount of transactions was ensured on Thursday and Friday- $5.6mln and $3.4 mln respectively.
The source says that on April 25-29, on the intrabank currency market (transactions with customers) the banks bought $68.4 mln (11% drop versus the previous week) at the average exchange rate of 479.07 AMD/$1, and sold $62.99 mln (3% growth versus the previous week) at the average exchange rate of 480.75 AMD/$1. In the meantime, the banks bought 7.9 mln EUR (down 15.1%) at the average exchange rate of 538.93 AMD/1EUR, and sold 12.7 mln EUR (up 29.6%) at the exchange rate of 544.06 AMD/1EUR. The banks also bought 804.8 mln RUR (weekly growth by 3.5%) at the average exchange rate of 7.24 AMD/1RUR and sold 447.5 mln RUR (weekly growth by 24.8%) at the exchange rate of 7.34 AMD/1RUR.
During the previous week (April 18-April 23), the Armenian banks provided AMD loans worth 42.2 bln AMD and USD loans worth 31.2 mln USD. As compared with the previous week (April 11-16), AMD loans grew by 22,7%, and the ones in terms of USD declined by 35.8%
To recall, during the 12 months of 2015, on the retail foreign exchange market of Armenia AMD weakened against USD from 477 to 482 AMD/$1 on average and strengthened against EUR from 571.5 to 529 AMD/1EUR and against Russian ruble from 8.2 to 6.9 AMD/1 RUR. Between December 14 and 28, the Central Bank made almost daily interventions. AMD depreciated amid decline of foreign trade turnover (by 20.6%), while import dropped more significantly (by 26.5%) than export (by 3.9%) as well as the decline in transfer inflow to Armenia more than by 30%, and this happened in conditions of low buying capacity of the population and low economic activity in the country. Since early 2016, AMD started depreciating again on the retail foreign exchange market of Armenia however since March it strengthened and stood at 482 AMD/1USD by March 25. At the same time AMD depreciated against EUR to 538 AMD/1EUR and against RUR to 7.1AMD/1RUR. Later, on April 2 AMD appreciated against USD to 480.5 AMD/$1, at the same time depreciating against EUR to 547 AMD/1 EUR, and against RUR to 7.2 AMD/1RUR. Afterwards, the AMD depreciated against USD to 484.5 AMD/$1 by April 8, at the same time depreciating against EUR to 551 AMD/1EUR and against RUR to 7.3 AMD/1RUR. The following three weeks (April 11-29) were a period of revaluation of Armenian dram. It appreciated against USD to 479 AMD/$1, against EUR to 545 AMD/1EUR amid depreciaiton against Ruble to 7,5 AMD/1 Ruble.