Baku, Azerbaijan, February 4
Trend:
The Central Bank of Uzbekistan has released data on the country's currency market over the past year, Trend reports with reference to the Uzbek media.
"The foreign exchange market in 2018 was characterized by an increase in the volume of operations, both from the demand and supply side, the growth of participants in foreign exchange transactions, the continuation of the transition of economic entities and population from the informal to the official foreign exchange market," Uzbek Central Bank said in a statement.
The volume of foreign currency purchases by legal entities increased 1.5 times and amounted to $10.4 billion while the number of business entities increased 2.3 times and amounted to 5100 in 2018.
The volume of currency sold to banks increased by 2 times - from $2.1 billion to $4.1 billion in 2018. As a result, the share of export proceeds sold to banks increased from 31 to 61 percent.
Last year, individuals sold $2.7 billion to banks, out of which $969 million banks sold to the population and $1.7 billion were aimed at covering the demands of legal entities.
Net foreign exchange reserves of the country amounted to $26.4 billion at the end of the year.
The exchange rate policy reflects the ratio of the current level of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market. In particular, during periods of increase in foreign exchange earnings and relatively weak demand, a strengthening of the exchange rate was observed, and, weakening with a faster increase in demand.
The exchange rate change was characterized by seasonal factors that influenced the demand and supply of foreign currency in 2018.
Thus, the exchange rate devalued by 2.7 percent by the end of 2018 compared with the beginning of the year (from 8120 to 8339 soums / US dollars), whereas its fluctuation during the year between the minimum and maximum values was 7.3 percent (7781 soums / US dollars in August, 8348 soums / US dollars in December).
($1- 8 382.44 soums)