YEREVAN, June 1. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Central Bank injected a total of $94 million in the local foreign currency market in the first quarter of 2016 to shore up the national currency, according to the regulator’s report on inflation and fiscal policies in the second quarter of 2016.
“The interventions of the Central Bank were implemented to offset significant fluctuations in the foreign exchange market, resulting from the seasonality of the balance of payments,” the report says.
In the first quarter of 2016 devaluation pressures were recorded in currency markets of Armenia trade partner countries. Particularly, the average weighted nominal rate of partner countries’ currencies depreciated by 3.6% against the US dollar in the reporting period of time due to the weakening of the Russian ruble, Ukrainian hryvnia and Chinese yuan.
According to the report, in Q1< 2016, the average nominal rate of Armenian dram against the US dollar depreciated by 2.1%. The average exchange rate of US dollar against the dram in the first quarter amounted to 488.67 drams against 477.26 drams in the same period of 2015.
However, the real effective exchange rate in the first quarter of 2016 revalued by 0.2% over the same period last year.
Since the beginning of 2016 the dollar exchange rate in Armenia showed a growing trend
exceeding 490 drams on February 3 for the first time after a sharp devaluation in late 2014. By mid-February, the greenback traded at 495 drams. However, since February 19, the Armenian dram began to strengthen, returning to the level of 490 drams per dollar and continued to fall.
In 2015, the Armenian national currency, despite serious internal and external conditions, turned out to be the most stable across the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), losing only 14.9% of its value, while the Kazakh tenge depreciated by 23.74%, the Belarusian ruble – by 55.3%, the Russian ruble – by 59.77% and the Kyrgyz som by 20.14%. M.V. -0-
