BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 17. Azerbaijani banks reduced the purchase and sale of foreign currency in cash by 19.7 percent in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022, Trend reports via monetary policy review of the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA).
The volume of transactions of Azerbaijani banks for the purchase and sale of foreign currency in cash amounted to $971 million during this period.
According to the review, the share of the US dollar in these operations was 83.1 percent.
The CBA’s review notes that the sale of foreign currency decreased by six times in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.
The non-cash foreign exchange market of Azerbaijan from January through March amounted to $6.8 billion, which is eight percent less than in the same period of 2022. Of the total volume of transactions, 80.6 percent came from the US dollar, 19.4 percent from other currencies.
According to the CBA, as many as 78.7 percent of non-cash transactions occurred on the intrabank foreign exchange market, and 21.3 percent - on the interbank foreign exchange market from January through March 2023.
Azerbaijani banks increased operations for the purchase and sale of foreign currency in cash by 27 percent to $5.1 billion in 2022 compared to 2021.