YEREVAN, January 22. /ARKA/. The council of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) lowered the Lombard repo rate by 3 percentage points to 17% at its meeting on Wednesday, the regulator’s press office reported.

This will help neutralize high inflationary expectations and ensure the target level of inflation in the circumstances when pressures reduce in the currency market, says the report.

At the same time, CBA’s council has raised the refinancing rate by one percentage point to 9.5% to maintain the monetary and credit policy positions.

On November 24, 2014, the regulator increased the cost of short-term dram liquidity and raised the Lombard repo rate from 8.25% to 10.25% to curb pressures in the currency market due to steep rise in dollar exchange rate to 435 drams per $1 over the day. Yet, Armenian dram depreciation continued hitting new records, and the rate reached 527.20 drams per $1 on December 17. Consequence, the regulator had to raise the Lombard repo rate to 21% on December 2 and then lower it to 20% on December 24. ($1- 476.39 drams).-0-