Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 7
By Emin Aliyev - Trend: The Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) conducted sterilization of currency to the amount of $1.67 billion to prevent significant strengthening of manat rate and neutralizing the negative impact on the competitiveness of non-oil sector during the first three quarters of 2013, the Central Bank's report on monetary policy for the first nine months said on Thursday.
"This year, CBA continued its rate policy within the dollar / manat bilateral targeting," the report said. "The supply on the currency market exceeds demand in terms of a large surplus in the balance of payments in the country."
The manat rate compared tot the U.S. dollar remained unchanged in January -September 2013 and appreciated by 0.06 percent. The stability of the national currency had a positive impact on the sustainability of the financial sector. Manat appreciated nominally and really compared to the currencies of Great Britain, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Iran and Japan during the reporting period.
"The nominal effective exchange rate of manat on non-oil sector in the total turnover increased by 5.7 percent in January -September," the report said. "According to the model estimates, strengthening the nominal effective exchange rate by one percent reduces the prices by 0.3 percent. The real effective exchange rate on the non-oil sector strengthened during the reporting period by 2.6 percent."