BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 16
By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:
The national currency of Uzbekistan in the period from January through June 2020 depreciated by 7.2 percent compared to the same period of 2019, Trend reports citing the Central Bank of Uzbekistan.
The Central Bank of Uzbekistan provided a brief overview of the domestic foreign exchange market in the first half of 2020.
“In June 2020, the Uzbek soum depreciated by 0.4 percent. The dynamics of the exchange rate of the national currency in the first half of this year was formed based on fundamental factors of supply and demand in the domestic currency market, as well as external factors,” the overview said.
The total volume of operations in the domestic currency market in the first half of the year amounted to $8.2 billion, having increased by 1.8 and 1.2 times respectively compared to the corresponding periods of 2018 and 2019.
Demand for foreign currency from legal entities increased by seven percent in six months compared to the same period in 2019 and amounted to $6.5 billion (in the period from January to June 2019 demand amounted to $6.1 billion).
In the target structure of foreign currency purchases, the main share (63 percent) is payment for the import of equipment, goods and raw materials for industrial purposes, 21 percent is the import of consumer goods and medicines, 13 percent is repayment of foreign loans and the remaining and three percents were purchased for other purposes.
In the structure of sources of import financing in the period from January through June 2020 the share of funds purchased (converted) in the domestic foreign exchange market was 58 percent, the share of import financing from own funds in foreign currency was 21 percent. In the corresponding period of 2019 these indicators were 50 percent and 23 percent, respectively.
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