Baku, Azerbaijan, April 2
By Azad Hasanli - Trend:
The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) plans to move to a floating exchange rate of manat, CEO of CBA Elman Rustamov said April 2 during the parliamentary committee on economic policy.
Azerbaijan is not yet ready to fully move to a floating exchange rate of manat, since the country should have enough organizations who earn a lot of money, according to the head of the Central Bank.
"Currently, there are only three such organizations in Azerbaijan - the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan, the Central Bank and the company SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan)," he said. "If we move to "fully floating rate", regardless of the situation on the market, rate of manat can both strengthen and cheapen by 20-30 percent. This, in turn, could have a negative impact on the economy of the country."
In accordance with the decision of the Central Bank, starting from February 21, the exchange rate of the manat against the US dollar was reduced to 1.05 manat per dollar (compared to 0.7844 manat earlier), which corresponds to the cheapening of rate by 33.9 percent.
Edited by CN
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