YEREVAN, March 15, /ARKA/. The Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) said in a report after a March 4 Board meeting that the level of Armenian economy’s dependence on US Dollars (dollarization) dropped by 1.8% in February 2011.

According to the report, the Central Bank’s drive to toughen up its money and credit policy was reflected in money and credit indicators. Thus, the volumes of money and Dram bases rose by 3.2% at the end of February. In this condition the Central Bank registered an advanced growth of Dram supply against money supply by 2.8% and 4.3% respectively.

‘As a result of growth of deposits in Drams by 5.4% and deposits in foreign currency by 1% the dollarization level of the economy dropped by 1.8% in February as opposed to the previous month as the volume of lending rose by 1.5% from the previous month,’ the report says.

It said these processes were reflected in money and credit indicators for the last 12 months. Thus, the money supply grew by 13.1% over the last 12 months and the Dram supply by 19.6% as the money base grew by 4.7%.

It says as deposits in Drams rose by 33.7% in 12 months and deposits in foreign currency by 6%, the dollarization level reduced by 6.3%. The report says also that despite the toughened money and credit policy the rate of lending to economy stood at 29.4% at the end of February. The average interest rate on government bonds with up to 12 month maturity period rose by 0.28 percentage point to 8.82% and that of midterm bonds rose by 0.31 percentage point to 13.83%. The average interest rate on REPO rose by 0.45 p.p. in February from January to 8.27%. On March 4 the Central Bank raised the benchmark refinancing rate further by 0.5 p.p. to 8.25%.-0-