Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 16
By Anvar Mammadov – Trend:
The rise of key interest rate of the US Federal Reserve System (Fed) won’t have a direct impact on the Azerbaijani manat’s rate, Leyla Yusifzade, head of the Financial Stability Analysis Department of the Center for Research and Development of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA).
Yusifzade made the remarks at the sixth annual meeting of the international ratings agency Fitch Ratings on Azerbaijan.
The Federal Open Market Committee has raised the base interest rate from the level of 0.5-0.75 percent to 0.75-1 percent per year after the March meeting.
Yusifzade noted that the rise in the Fed interest rate may affect the manat rate only indirectly, and this influence will be rather psychological.
The CBA’s monetary policy, first of all, can be influenced by significant changes in oil prices, she said, adding that however, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the country’s government while forming the state budget forecasts for 2017 was guided by oil prices, which are much lower than the current prices.
It should be noted that the budget forecasts for 2017 were formed on the basis of oil prices at $40 per barrel.