Wednesday, December 10 2014

Armenia is experiencing a strange display of the flowing exchange rate, Gurgen Arsenyan, MP from the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) Faction, told journalists at today's roundtable dedicated to protection of human rights in economy. 

He said that according to the Central Bank, the exchange rate in Armenia is formed by the demand and supply principle. In the meantime, a few days ago all the commercial banks in Armenia set one and the same exchange rate by a strange coincidence - 442.6 AMD/$1. "Is this called a floating rate when all the commercial banks stood at the same figure for some unknown reasons?" said Arsenyan. 

To recall, earlier Head of the Central Bank of Armenia Arthur Javadyan said that the CBA is not going to change its position and will follow the floating exchange rate policy and will make exchange market interventions if needed. On December 9, the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) sold $6 million to the participating banks at the average exchange rate of 458.31 AMD/1 USD in the course of intervention in the interbank currency market. The CBA press service told ArmInfo that the cut-off price was 457.57 AMD/1 USD. Currency market experts say that despite the small interventions of the CBA, the AMD devaluation has slowed down to some extent. However, to restore the balance in the currency market, not only daily but also more serious interventions are needed.  

On December 9, in the retail currency market of Armenia the AMD/USD exchange rate exceeded 461 AMD/1USD with over13% devaluation for the last 2.5 months. As of 4:40 pm, the exchange rates at swap bodies were as follows:  460/463 AMD/1 USD, 564/570 AMD/1 EUR, 8.45/8.50 AMD/1 RUR.  The optimal rates at the banks of Armenia were as follows: USD was purchased for 456 AMD (ceiling), EUR - 561 AMD, RUR - 8.42 AMD. The lowest rates of sale were as follows: 458 AMD/1 USD, 569 AMD/1 EUR, 8.54 AMD/1 RUR. At NASDAQ OMX Armenia, from June through December 9, foreign exchange operations amounted to $396.5 million drams with the exchange rating growing from 407.14 - 438.62 AMD/1 USD. No transactions were registered after December 1. The transactions in November alone totaled nearly $117 million drams. Last week (1-5 Dec), interbank market of foreign exchange operations registered a record-breaking indicator - $59.3 million, which resulted in a 442.42 AMD/1USD exchange rate. In this light, the stock exchange started the week with transactions in the amount of $3.5 million (1 Dec) with no deals for the following days.