BAKU, Azerbaijan. Nov. 1
By Zeyni Jafarov - Trend:
This week the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) held a press conference dedicated to the decision of the Central Bank's board on the parameters of the interest rate corridor, Trend reports referring to the CBA.
The CBA board made a decision to keep the interest rate at the level of 6.5 percent. At the same time, the upper limit of the interest rate corridor was left at seven percent, and the lower limit amounted to six percent.
In addition, the head of the CBA Elman Rustamov noted that according to the bank's forecasts, inflation in Azerbaijan by the end of 2020 will be at the level of 2.8 - 3 percent, and in 2021 it will be at the level of 3.6-4 percent. "Manat exchange rate is stable and macroeconomic stability in Azerbaijan is maintained," he added.
The international rating agency Standard & Poor's Global Ratings last week published forecasts for the banking sector of Azerbaijan. S&P confirmed Azerbaijan's long-term and short-term sovereign credit ratings on liabilities in foreign and national currency at "BB + / B", and the outlook for the long-term credit rating was changed from "stable" to "negative".
The CBA released statistics for the nine months of this year. The foreign exchange reserves of the CBA amounted to $6.491 billion (an increase of 7.6 percent in annual circulation), and the money supply in manat terms (M2) in Azerbaijan at the end of September 2020 amounted to 18.43 billion manats.
In total, the volume of lending to the real sector amounted to 14.9 billion manat ($8.7 billion) as of October 1. According to the data, the largest share of loans in Azerbaijan fell on the household sector, amounting to 45.6 percent.
In addition, it became known that Azerbaijani banks issued in September 2020 mortgage loans in the amount of 22.7 million manat ($13.4 million), which is almost four times more than the same period last year.
Also, the outgoing week was remembered for the decline in oil prices, the strengthening of the manat against the currencies of the main partner countries and multidirectional changes in prices for precious metals.
Trend Economic Department
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