YEREVAN, September 2. /ARKA/. The Armenian national currency has already regained its lost value after it plunged against the U.S. dollar between March 2009 and March 2010 to AMD 405 per one dollar.

The Armenian currency, along with Ukrainian hryvna, Moldovan lei and Kazakh tenge, is the leader among CIS and East Europe countries’ currencies for its fastest growth against the dollar.

The value of the dram has grown 3.03% since the beginning of this year.

The lack of external inflation pressure, increase in world prices for non-ferrous metals, particularly copper and molybdenum exported by Armenia, and overseas investments and loans created favorable environment for the dram and gave it room for strengthening.

The new cooperation program signed with the International Monetary Fund on June 28, 2010 has contributed to it as well.

Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, whose currencies remain unchanged against the dollar, were singled out for their conservative currency policy, underdeveloped forex markets and unwillingness for transition to more flexible exchange rate.

Baltic countries, Romania and Hungary’s national currencies showed the worst devaluation.

This shows that these countries were burdened with wide budget deficits when the crisis broke out and the trade deficits fueled by excessive inflow of the credit capital from other countries of the Central Europe in 2005 to 2008.

This way has been proven to be wrong. These countries are trying to put their trade balance right by devaluating their national currencies.

The majority of other countries took the road of a moderate devaluation of their currencies against the dollar for supporting their exports.

Dynamics of CIS and East Europe countries’ currencies against the U.S. dollar since the beginning of this year:

1. Armenian dram +3.03%

2. Ukrainian hryvna +1.19%

3. Moldovan lei +0.83%

4. Kazakh tenge +0.8%

5. Turkmen manat – 0%

6. Azerbaijani manat – 0.1%

7. Tajik somoni – 0.24%.

8. Russian ruble -2.39%

9. British pound -3.86%

10. Belarusian ruble -5.35%

11. Kyrgyz som -5.66%

12. Uzbek sum -6.57%

13. Czech crown -6.65%

14. Georgian lari -8.0%

15. Norwegian crown -8.93%

16. Polish zloty -9.33%

17. Euro -11.28%

18. Lithuanian lit -12.88%

19. Romanian lei -13.53%

20. Latvian lat -13.7%

21. Hungarian forint -17.75%

Mikael Verdyan,

Forex Club analyst for ARKA News Agency