YEREVAN, January 8. / ARKA /. The Central Bank of Armenia said the drop in lending interest rates observed in the local financial market in 2013 November and December was caused by the regulator’s decision to cut its key refinancing rate by 0.5 percentage point in early November from 8.5% to 8% and further to 7.75% in December.

Thus, the average interest rate on interbank repo on December 16 fell by 0.6 percentage point from October to 8.17 %; the average rate on government bonds with 12 month maturity period in the primary market declined by 0.7 percentage point to 8.25 percent, while the average rate on interbank lending on the stock exchange fell by 1.2 percentage points to 7.3%.

Armenia’s national currency, the dram, was quite steady against other currencies: the average rate of dram against U.S. dollar grew by 0.2% compared with the average for October, amounting to 405.3 drams, while euro lost 0.1 % to 554.4 drams. The Russian ruble grew by 2.9 percent to 12.3 drams. -0-