Friday, September 20 2019 11:49

ArmInfo. The foreign currency purchased by the Central Bank of Armenia in 2019 reached $ 398 million (as of September 15, this figure was $ 351 million). The  Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan announced this on his  Facebook page.

"This is very good news, which indicates a high level of activity in  the economy," the prime minister emphasized.

Earlier, ArmInfo, citing the Central Bank's monthly report, reported  that in the first half of 2019, the Central Bank of Armenia in the  foreign exchange market carried out interventions only to purchase  foreign currency in total falsities in the amount of $ 185.250  million, which is 4 times higher than the same period last year. The  largest volume of interventions by the Central Bank in the period  under review was in June - $ 96.6 million with a monthly increase of  3.6 times. According to the Central Bank, previous interventions  occurred in March - $ 5 million, April - $ 56.650 million and May - $  27 million. For the first half of this year, during the Central  Bank's interventions, the dram against the dollar fell from March  485.93 dr / $ 1 to June 478.29 dr / $ 1. Moreover, in June the pace  of dram revaluation against the dollar slowed down to 1.6 points,  against 3.0 points in previous months (March-May every month).

As ArmInfo analysts note, in a floating exchange rate regime,  interventions can serve both to smooth out 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 VMR  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 dr / $ 1 to June 478.38 dr / $ 1.  Exchange currency platform in the first half of this year continued  to be empty.