CBA forecasts stable rate for manat
By Rashid Shirinov
The Central Bank of Azerbaijan has assured the manat will retain its stable rate in 2016.
"Azerbaijani manat will stay stable till the end of 2016," Elman Rustamov, the CBA Chairman told journalists on May 9, Trend reports.
The CBA has bought about 85 million dollars in order to stabilize the rate of the currency. The Central Bank has issued loans of about 1 billion manat to the banking sector.
Rustamov said that manat’s exchange rate is determined in accordance with market demand. "The national currency has stayed stable lately," he stressed.
That is an extremely successful case as compared to high instability of manat in 2015. The rate of U.S. dollar against manat soared from 0.78 to 1.05 AZN in February 2015 and 1.55 in December. After these events the CBA decided to put manat in floating exchange rate.
Rustamov added that further forecasts about manat depend on internal and external factors and oil prices.
He noted that the situation that exists today suggests that Azerbaijani manat will not face any major changes in its exchange rate: “Oil prices and the overall economic situation over the country allow suggesting that.”
The head of the CBA also added that major reason of Azerbaijani foreign exchange reserves growth is not increasing raw material prices, but the revenues of the oil fund.
“Our foreign exchange reserves have increased since the beginning of the year, and the current figure is $4.2 billion. The figure was lower in the beginning of the year. Foreign exchange earnings were received both from management and market.” Rustamov said.
The official rate of manat for dollar was set at the level of 1.5094 AZN on May 10, 2016. Azerbaijani manat has strengthened by 0.04 percent in comparison to its May 6 rate against U.S. dollar.
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