Central Bank resumes currency intervention

Baku. 5 April. REPORT.AZ/ Tomorrow, April 6, Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) may resume sale of foreign currency at the regular exchange auctions. Report informs, as a buyer, the CBA made its first appearance at yesterday's foreign exchange auction and bought 0.4 million USD from the commercial banks. This happened against the backdrop of a significant strengthening of manat in recent days. According to the CBA, the need for a change in monetary policy occurred in order to prevent sharp fluctuations of Azerbaijani manat. Notably, after this decision, the process of strengthening of manat stopped and the official dollar exchange rate rose by 0.47% and amounted to 1,5165 AZN/USD.

Analytical Group of Report News Agency believes that the current exchange rate, likely to be a target for the minimum level of CBA, based on current market conditions and the situation on the oil market. Yesterday's changes to the CBA's policy, has increased demand for the dollar. As a result, if in the morning the dollar fell to 1,44 AZN/USD, by the evening the rate has reached 1,5690 AZN/USD. A number of commercial banks even suspended the sale of foreign currency in cash.

According to the observations of Report analysts, today as well US-dollar increased and reached 1,5770 AZN/USD: "Tomorrow CBA allegedly will auction 30-50 million dollars. Growth in real demand for foreign currency several times is expected. Generally, before the end of the month, official dollar rate will rise to 1,60 AZN/USD. Considerably, in the last days fall in oil prices in the global market by 12% is a major factor in the weakening of the manat."