YEREVAN, December 24. / ARKA /. Armenia’s Central Bank said today it had decided December 23 to lower the reserve requirement for local commercial banks in foreign currency from 24% to 20%, leaving the reserve requirement in the national currency, the dram, unchanged at 2%.
A few days earlier (on December 17), the Central Bank doubled the reserve requirement in foreign currency from 12% to 24%, which prompted a sharp strengthening of the dram the next day. Thus, on December 18, the US dollar fell by 30.2 points against dram to 497 drams.
Besides, on December 23 the regulator raised its key refinancing rate by 1.75 points to 8.5 percent in a bid to mitigate future inflationary pressures and encourage the return of inflation to the target band.
The Central Bank has increased also the rate on borrowed funds from 5.25% to 7%. Earlier it had also reduced the Lombard REPO rate by 1 percentage point to 20%. -0-
