Starting 8 December, the Central
Banks of Armenia is launching daily interventions to restore the balance in the
exchange market and soften currency fluctuations, the Central Bank's (CB)
press-service told ArmInfo. The CB will continue announcing the ceiling of
daily sale amounts till the end of the year to normalize the situation in the
exchange market of Armenia.
According to the source, the CB will be publishing
foreign exchange operations to ensure transparency in the financial market of
Armenia. The daily intervention amounts
will be reduced gradually until the national currency exchange rate is
balanced. The goal is to reduce the CB's influence on formation of the national
currency exchange rate.
In the retail market of Armenia, the AMD/USD exchange
rate has exceeded 454 AMD/1USD with a12% devaluation for the last 2.5
months. As of 2:00pm on December 8, the
exchange rates at swap bodies were as follows: 450/458 AMD/1 USD, 554/574 AMD/1
EUR, 8.4/9 AMD/1 RUR. The optimal rates at the banks of Armenia were as
follows: USD was purchased for 450 AMD (ceiling), EUR - 556 AMD, RUR - 8 AMD. The
lowest rates of sale were as follows: 453 AMD/1 USD, 567 AMD/1 EUR, 9.55 AMD/1
RUR.
At NASDAQ OMX Armenia, from June up to 5 December,
foreign exchange operations amounted to $396.5 million drams with the exchange
rating growing from 407.14 - 438.63 AMD/1 USD. The transactions in November
alone totaled nearly $117 million drams. Last week (1-5 Dec), interbank market
of foreign exchange operations recoded a record-breaking indicator - $59.3
million, which resulted in 442.42AMD/1 USD exchanger 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 4 days.