YEREVAN, October 28. /ARКА/. Armenia’s external forex reserves have reached the record high of about $500 million, the chairman of the Central Bank Artur Javadyan told reporters on Monday.
Speaking in the parliament Javadyan said the Central Bank has been pursuing the floating exchange rate policy, but, on the other hand, this year the regulator had the opportunity to acquire surplus currency in the market.
He said forex reserves have reached almost $500 million. ‘This is an unprecedented figure. Even in the years when the Armenian dram was actively strengthening, we did not purchase foreign currency in such a volume,” Javadyan said.
He also said that over the first nine months of 2019 the external forex reserves increased by $250 million. Javadyan expressed confidence that this figure will increase even more at the end of the year. According to him, the increase in reserves leads to an increase in the country’s economic potential and capabilities.
The head of the Central Bank recalled that according to international criteria, the country’s forex reserves should be equivalent to the amount of three-month imports, while the current amount of forex reserves is enough to cover import for 6 months.
Another positive aspect, according to Javadyan, is the injection of funds into the economy, which is one of the components of an expansionary policy resulting in increased economic activity.
“There are other changes regarding compulsory reserves of commercial banks. As a result, 300 billion drams were channeled by the banks into the country’s economy. We expect that by the end of the year the external forex reserves will grow further, although it all depends on international trends and other indicators,” said Javadyan. –0—
