YEREVAN, August 24. /ARKA/. The US dollar leapt 5.73 percentage points against the Armenian national currency on Monday and traded at 483.43 drams, on average, at Armenia's forex market, the press office of the Central Bank of Armenia reports.

The European currency surged 16.56 percentage points to 554.83 drams per one euro.
Remarkable is that not a single dollar or euro deal was effected today at NASDAQ OMX Armenia and demand price for one dollar was 486.5 drams at the stock exchange.

The dollar was stably going down in Armenia throughout a certain period of time despite adverse developments at world foreign exchange markets.

It has become known on Thursday that Kazakhstan let its national currency float freely. Immediately after this step the tenge plummeted more than 30%. The move has been prompted by China's decision on August 11 to devaluate the yuan to support its export and economy, as a whole, and by continuous devaluation of Russia's ruble.

However, the dram devaluation was caused not only by direct impacts of outside factors, but also by skepticism over the Armenian dram that was grounded on deterioration of economic situation in the country – its foreign trade turnover shrank 20.6% over the first half of this year to $2 186 million and money transfers contracted by 30.5% to $537.1 million. ----0-----