DUSHANBE, January 27, 2009, Asia-Plus – To support the somoni exchange rate the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) has reduced the volume of the national currency in circulation, the NBT head Sharif Rahimzoda announced at a press conference in Dushanbe on January 27.
According to him, there are several instruments to support the national currency and one of them is monetary policy. “Since the beginning of this year, we have reduced the volume of the national currency in circulation by 74 million somoni and the monetary base (currency in circulation and in bank vaults, plus reserves which commercial banks hold in their accounts with the central bank) by 100 million somoni,” said Rahimzoda, “When there are many somoni in circulation, the national currency exchange rate falls, therefore, we are reducing the volume of somoni in circulation.”
The second way to support the national currency is to sell dollars, he said, noting that the central bank has enough USD reserves. “We recently entered the market to sell 1 million US dollars; however, we managed to sell only 57,000 dollars because there was no demand,” said the central bank head, “Yesterday, we sold inconsiderable amounts and they were purchased not by the currency exchange offices but by persons who had to pay their contracts, and therefore, they were ready to purchase dollars at any price.”
“When projecting the budget, the government expected the USD exchange rate to be 3.55 somoni. Our task is to hold this exchange rate, otherwise, amounts provided for by the budget will be unrealistic,” Rahimzoda said.
In the meantime, the official USD exchange rate for today is 3.6457 somoni.
