In conditions of international crisis currency exchange rates are changing more often.
In the recent time the Armenian dram was not stabile and the exchange rates of currencies towards the national currency were changing all the time. Even though these changes were not much, it is clear that the Armenian dram is losing its price towards Euro and dollar.
Yesterday the currency exchange points of Yerevan bought 1 dollar at 308.5 and sold at 310, the exchange rate of Euro was 412-420, and that of the Russian ruble – 10.8-11.2. It means that there were no rapid changes in the exchange rate compared to the rates on Friday. The only difference is that the rate of Euro was ranging much (8 dram), which could result in illegal trade deals near currency exchange offices. According to the information of the Central Bank the price of dollar constantly grew during the first two weeks of December. The median exchange rate of USD-AMD was 305.3 in the beginning of December, and on December 12 it was 308.3. The price of the national currency has fallen toward Euro too. On December 1 the median exchange rate of AMD and Euro was 386.5, and on December 12 it reached 411.8. Since the end of November dollar has been losing its price toward Euro, and now the correlation of dollar and Euro is 1.335. In the beginning of December this rate was 1.266. During the past two weeks dram has lost its price toward ruble and pound as well. In a word, Euro has been comparatively more stabile during the past weeks compared to dram and dollar. As dram has lost its price toward dollar too, it means that it has devaluated toward Euro more. Generally it is possible that such devaluation of the national currency is connected with the fact that capacities of import have grown and the capacities of foreign transfers to Armenia have decreased. Also, the capacity of investments in construction in October was less by 40% than in the same month of the previous year, which is a rapid fall in construction investment growth since 2001. As for construction, construction investments bring huge inflows of dollar. In addition, in the real estate market the number of sales and deals has been cut down too. As most of the investors in this sector and people who buy apartments, especially apartments in new buildings, are Diaspora Armenians, thus this line of inflow of dollar in Armenia has been cut down as well. As a result of such fall in foreign currency inflow, the demand to such foreign currencies is growing and their prices are growing as well. By the way, the fact that dram is devaluating means that the international crisis has reached Armenia as well unlike what the authorities say. December is considered a festive season in Armenia, i.e. people working overseas are returning and spending money here and also those who get transfers from other countries are spending their savings as well. During the past years this process resulted in fall of USD rate as a result of large foreign currency inflow. However, time is going but what is happening is the vice process. In fact, the incomes of citizens from exporting labor and receiving money transfers from their relatives have decreased. It is not excluded that this tendency may change till the end of December, i.e. dollar devaluates. However, whatever happens it will not be the same as during the past years. Of course this is normal. The only thing that is not normal is the government’s non-market policy of “stabile dram”.