YEREVAN, December 23. /ARKA/. The Armenian national currency, the dram, has been demonstrating a relative stability compared with its regional neighbors’ currencies, Laura E. Bailey, the World Bank's Country Manager for Armenia, told a news conference today. She said she even wrote about the dram in her page in Twitter.

Ms. Laura Bailey wrote in her Twitter: "I remind that the Armenian dram is holding out OK in a volatile world,” placing also link to a post by a Bloomberg study of the situation in the Asian currency markets.

The Armenian dram has been showing a mixed trend this year, strengthening and depreciating again. However, the fluctuations were moderate. In particular, the average dollar exchange rate in January was 475.73 drams; in October it was 472.5 drams, and in November 2015 the dram depreciated by 14.2% from the year before, however, it was the lowest depreciation across the Eurasian Economic Union.

According to Ms. Bailey, the inflation in 2016 will be staying with the projected target band. She said the World Bank monitors the situation with inflation and, according to their forecasts it will be within 4%-5% next year.

According to official figures, consumer prices in January-November 2015 increased by 4.1% year-on-year. The 12-month inflation in November of this year was 1.2%. The government’s projection of inflation for 2015 is 4% (± 1.5%). The 2016 budget has the same forecast. -0-