YEREVAN, September 2. /ARKA/. The Central Bank of Armenia bought $52.6 million at the second quarter to neutralize short-term volatility at the forex market, the regulator says in its monetary policy performance report for the second quarter.
In its previous report, the central bank said that it has sold $94.6 million.
Revaluation pressures were seen at the forex markets of Armenia’s trade partners in the second quarter of this year.
In particular, the average registered dollar exchange rate in partner countries changed in favor of their national currencies mainly thanks to revaluation of the Russian ruble, the euro and the Georgian lari.
Along with the revaluation of the national currencies of Armenia’s partner countries in the second quarter, the Armenian dram went 2 percentage points up against the US dollar.
The real effective exchange rate added 1.3% to the Armenian dram’s value in the 2nd Q 2016, compared with the same quarter a year before.
The dollar started going up in the beginning of this year – it traded at 490 drams on February 3 for the first time after it took a sharp dive in late 2014 and reached 495 by mid-February.
On February 19, however, the Armenian national currency started strengthening going closer and closer to the $1 – AMD 490 exchange rate, and after that the dram’s downward motion resumed. Now dollar is traded at 474 drams.
In 2015, the Armenian dram, despite major inside and outside adverse developments proved to be the most stable currency among the Eurasian Economic Union countries’ national currencies.
It shed 14.9 percentage points against the US dollar, while Kyrgyz som dived 20.14%, the Kazakh tenge sank 23.74%, Belarusian ruble plunged 55.3% and Russian ruble plummeted 59.77%. M.V.–0—-
