Sunday, March 5 2017 12:23

ArmInfo. The Armenian forex  interbank reduced  the amount of transactions February 27- March 3  versus almost 2-fold a week before. In addition, the intrabank market  shortened EUR operations, while the demand for dollars and rubles  intensified.

 Almost zero transactions were registered  on NASDAQ OMX Armenia,  after a  small amount of transactions a week befor. 

As a result, AMD slightly depreciated against USD from 486,5 to 487  /$1, and kept its positions at 8,4 AMD/1 RUR, and kept appreciating   against EUR from 516 to 513 AMD/1EUR.  Before that, in January a  depreciation of AMD to these currencies was observed, and it was  sharper to EUR than to USD and RUR .  For comparison it should be  noted that in early 2016 the AMD/USD exchange rate was 482 AMD/$1,  AMD/EUR exchange rate was 529 AMD/1EUR, and AMD/RUR exchange rate was  6.9 AMD/1RUR. In 2016 the foreign exchange market showed signs of  life rarely, making one at a time transaction between March and May:  USD100 thousand in March, USD 2.950 mln in April and USD 800 thousand  in May, after which it was passive. In Jan-Oct 2016, the Central Bank   bought USD on the foreign exchange market in April (USD2.4 mln at   478.5 AMD/$1 rate), June (USD 50.2 mln at 476.72 AMD/$1), August   ($19.8 mln at 474.25 AMD/$1), September (USD28.8mln at 474.11 AMD/$1)   and October (USD 50.8 mln at 475.47 AMD/$1), and sold in January,  February, November, and December (USD53.1 mln, USD 41.5mln, USD 13.1  mln, and USD15 mln respectively at 484.69 AMD/$1, 492.59 AMD/$1,  478.56 AMD/1USD and 483.06 AMD/1USD, respectively). 

The press office of the Central Bank of Armenia has told ArmInfo that  on Feb. 27 - March 3 the interbank forex market registered operations  worth $8.050  mln (weekly dropdown for 31%) at the average exchange  rate of 487,01 AMD/$1 (versus previous 486.96). At the same time,  simultaneously with that at the intrabank market the weekly dynamics  of USD based transactions changed the dropdown to increase, while the  activity of EUR operations sharply dropped down. 

On the intrabank market the USD purchase and sale changed the 10- 12%   dropdown  to 39,5-53% growth, RUR purchase intensed the growth  from  2% to 10,4%, while the sale changed from  38% drop to 15,5% growtn,  and  EUR sharply slowed down with its growth from  97% to 5% , while  the sale went from  24% growth to 2,4 % drop down.  

As a result, the purchase made up $ 87.3 mln at the average exchange  rate of 486,04 AMD/$1, 14.6 mln EUR at 511,54 AMD/1EUR ? 895.6 mln  RUR at 8,33 AMD/1RUR, while the sales amounted to $113.8 at 487,21  AMD/$1,  12.1 mln EUR at 515,83 AMD/1EUR and 343.8 mln RUR at 8.42  AMD/1RUR.

According to the source, during previous week (February 20-25),  Armenian banks rendered AMD based loans at total amount of AMD 53, 3  bln and USD based loans for 38,6 mln.In comparison to the previous  period (February 13-18) the AMD based loans trend improved from 7,6%  dropdown to 28,4% growth, while the USD based loans dynamics weakened  from 7,8% growth t0 12,9 % dropdown. 

To recall, in 2015, on the retail foreign exchange market of Armenia  AMD weakened against USD from 477 to 482 AMD/USD1 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. In 2016, AMD depreciated on  the retail foreign exchange market of  Armenia against USD and RUR to  484AMD/USD1 and 8 AMD/1RUR, and revaluated against EUR to 505  AMD/1EUR.  This happened amid slackening of economic activity growth  to 0.5% and decline of the net inflow of transfers (by 17.8% in  Jan-Dec 2016 versus Jan-Dec 2015). At the same time, foreign trade  turnover grew by 7.4% and deflation on the consumer market made up  1.4%.