YEREVAN, December 17. / ARKA /. The Central Bank of Armenia has no plans for early revision of its key refinancing rate, the head of the regulator, Artur Javadyan said today. He said this issue will be discussed when the Central Bank’s Board meets December 24.

Meeting on November 11 the Central Bank Board decided to leave the refinancing rate unchanged at 6.75%. The regulator had lowered the key rate by 0.25 percentage point on 12th of August this year.
Javadyan said today instead the Central Bank has actually doubled the Lombard repo rate  to 21%.

To stabilize the situation in the currency market and curb speculative currency trading the Central Bank began selling fixed amount of US Dollars to local banks from December 8. Last week the amount was $6 million. It has been lowered to $4 million for this week. The regulator said earlier that hard currency sales would be gradually lowered in the following weeks.

Javadyan also said today that the Central Bank did not and will not impose restrictions on banks regarding the servicing of customer accounts and deposits, adding that all the banks have enough hard currency to meet their commitments.

However, according to reports in the local media, many banks and exchange offices refuse to sell hard currency.

According to the head of the Central Bank, Armenia has a reliable and stable banking system with all the banks being solvent and able to meet all their obligations. Javadyan stressed that the Central Bank will prevent any speculative moves on the part of banks, including their refusal to serve customers' accounts.

He said the banks have $300 million in their accounts in the Central Bank and as much on their correspondent accounts, not counting the cash.

He said he met today with the heads of commercial banks, who appeared to be determined to punish those employees who will refuse to service customer accounts or deposits.

The dramatic depreciation of the dram started on November 24, continues. The exchange offices were buying the greenback today at 560 drams and selling at 580 drams, up from the official rates of 527.20 drams per one USD and 656.94 per one euro, set by the regulator. -0-