Azerbaijan, Baku, June 4 / Trend A.Akhundov /
The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) will continue its exchange rate policy in the framework of bilateral targeting of the dollar/manat, the bank's deputy chairman Khagani Abdullayev told Trend.
"Today, 90 per cent of external transactions are carried out in dollars, so targeting the dollar to the Azerbaijani manat is the best option. Two-currency targeting is also effective, but only if the share of the dollar and the euro in foreign trade operations is approximately equal. This will not happen soon. So far this is inappropriate," Abdullayev said.
The CBA completely abandoned the use of the dual currency (dollar/euro) basket in the determination of the exchange rate of the Azerbaijani manat, and made a transfer to the bilateral (manat /dollar) exchange rate targeting on January 10, 2011.
The dual currency basket has been applied in Azerbaijan since March 2008. The CBA said this mechanism was abandoned due to intense volatility in recent rates of major currencies as well as for maintaining stability of the national currency.