Azerbaijan faces US-dollar shortage again

Baku. 16 November. REPORT.AZ/ Most commercial banks in Azerbaijan stopped to sell US dollar.

Monitoring held by Report’s experts group revealed that Bank of Baku and Muganbank literally stopped sale of US-dollar. Accessbank limits sale to $200, ASB and BTB to $100. Amrahbank sells the same amount it purchases during the day.

Notably, auction held by Central Bank of Azerbaijan on November 15 met only 8% of demand of commercial banks. Shortly after the end of auction the shortage started to drive the market, which in its turn caused the underground rate to jump as high as AZN 1.81-1.82/USD. Notably, today upper selling rate for commercial banks is AZN 1.7715/USD.

Report’s expert group says the process of dollar’s strengthening in world market is underway: “As a result, most currencies lose ground against US dollar, including currencies of Azerbaijan’s major trade partners: Turkey, China and Russia. Turkish Lira suffered major devaluation recently. Thus, Lira lost 8% value against US dollar during last month, while Chinese yuan and Russian ruble down only 2.2% and 4% respectively.

Experts say the existing situation will increase pressure on manat; as a result, USD official rate will reach AZN 1.90 by the year-end. ‘Black market’ selling price is forecasted to reach 2 AZN/USD.