YEREVAN, July 17. /ARKA/. Armenian dram rose by 8 points last week due to the induced supply of the dollar at the forex market as well as speculative expectations touched off by non-working days. Throughout the days off the remittances arrived 3-4 days later, by July 9, Orakarg newspaper (Agenda) reports.
The non-working days have also impacted the market deals. Thus, the banks bought nearly $120 million and sold $126 million within July 9-14, whereas they usually purchase $70-80 million and sell $80-90 million. Moreover, within the reported period the total amount of purchase/sell deals at the forex market was $3.7 million against $1.7 million on June 25-29. This proves the surplus of the dollar in, at least, a number of Armenian banks. In accordance with the normative requirements of the Central Bank, the banks released themselves from currency surplus through selling it at the stock exchange.
According to the data provided by NASDAQ OMX Armenia, the stock deals totaled nearly $20 million last week. Most possibly, most of this volume was obtained by the CB. If we take into account the fact that the average weighted rate of dollar at the stock exchange was 412.6/$1 last week, and the CB sold $25.6 million in June at 414/$1 and 419/$1, we can suppose that the Central Banks has earned “big” money.
The newspaper points out that even though the Central Bank’s intervention was triggered by the decision to strengthen the Armenian dram, the intervention was not in time. This, in turn, led to rise in speculative expectations concerning the further growth of the Armenian dram. And if on July 9 the average weighted dollar rate was 418,25/$1, on July 10 it sharply changed to 415/$1.—0-
