This week dollar was rapidly depreciated. In case the exchange rate was 326 in the beginning of the week, yesterday it was at 300 dram (in some places 290). By the way, compared to 2003 dollar has been depreciated by 45%. Several days ago it was the 14th anniversary of the Armenian currency and such stabilization seemed to be a great present to it. When dram entered into circulation, the exchange rate of one dollar was 14,5 dram. In the beginning of 2003 that rate was 590 dram. Probably this rate will continue falling till the end of this year and may become 250 dram. During these days the employees of currency exchange offices say that the rate will continue falling down. As the Christmas time is approaching, people are receiving money from abroad to cover their New Year expenses, thus the supply of USD will grow rapidly, accordingly the exchange rate will fall correspondingly. This means that people will lose millions during this month. The rate of USD is falling in the entire world too, but that process is much slower in other countries than in Armenia. The chairman of “Airbus”, a French company producing aircrafts, Thomas Anders has warned that the devaluation of Dollar towards Euro is becoming “dangerous for life”. He says that despite the numerous new rules, their company foresees to lose millions due to the dollar devaluation and highlights that they will have to take certain steps to help the crisis. The company has started making institutional changes within the company, due to which over 10 thousand employees will lose their jobs till 2010. Definitely Armenian producers will be faced with such crisis too.
