ArmInfo. During the first half of 2019, the Central Bank of Armenia in the foreign exchange market carried out interventions only to purchase foreign currency in the amount of $ 185.250 million in total, which is 4-fold higher than the same period last year.
As evidenced by the data published in the monthly report of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia, the largest volume of Central Bank interventions in the period under review was in June - $ 96.6 million with a monthly increase of 3.6-fold.
According to the Central Bank, previous interventions occurred in March - $ 5 million, in April - $ 56.650 million and in May - $ 27 million. For the first half of this year, during the Central Bank's interventions, the dram exchange rate against the dollar fell from March 485.93 AMD / $ 1 to June 478.29 AMD / $ 1. Moreover, in June the pace of dram revaluation against the dollar slowed to 1.6 points, against 3.0 points in previous months (March-May monthly).
As ArmInfo analysts note, in conditions of floating exchange rate, interventions can serve both to mitigate exchange rate fluctuations, maintain sufficient liquidity in the foreign exchange market to avoid increased exchange rate volatility, and to gradually accumulate international reserves as a security buffer. The change in the gross international reserves of Armenia in the first half of 2019 indicates that by July 1 the Central Bank of Armenia increased them by 11.5% per annum to $ 2.216 billion, due to an almost similar increase in foreign assets dominating in their structure in hard currency (by 11, 2%). Moreover, in the first half of this year gross international reserves decline was observed only in January (by 11.7%), after which growth was recorded in the following months - from February to June by 11.1%.
According to the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia, for the first half of 2019, $ 2.265 billion and 420.64 million euros were bought on the intra-bank foreign exchange market, and $ 2.408 billion and 520.7 million euros were sold. At the foreign exchange interbank for the first half of 2019, transactions in the amount of $ 421.56 million were carried out, which was accompanied by a revaluation of the dram from January 486.24 AMD/ $ 1 to June 478.38 AMD / $ 1. Exchange currency platform in the first half of this year continued to be idle. It should be noted that, as of September 9, 2019, at 1:00pm, in the retail foreign exchange market, the AMD exchange rate against the dollar averaged 476.8 AMD / $ 1, against 484.8 AMD / $ 1 on the same date a year earlier and 484 AMD / $ 1 at the end of December 2018
