OREANDA-NEWS. December 24, 2014. NBM President Dorin Dragutanu said this to Publika TV and recalled that in late 2013, NBM’s monetary reserves reached their all-time peak of USD2.82 billion.

Although this year they has declined to USD 2.2 billion, they are still enough to cover a volume of commodities Moldova would import during 4 months, with the acceptable coverage being 3 months, he noted. Dorin Dragutanu also recalled that in 2012-2013 NBM bought some USD 600 million and the excessive monetary reserves now enable Moldova to pass through this difficult year avoiding drastic swings in exchange rates. According to the NBM President, the National Bank was criticized a lot for buying too much foreign currency instead of borrowing to the domestic economy.

“But we can see today that we were right”, the NBM President emphasized. Now NBM is using the monetary reserves to bolster the economy and to absorb external shocks. NBM intervenes in the FX market by selling foreign currency not to support the MDL exchange rate artificially, but to deter it from excess fluctuation, Dorin Dragutanu said. He referred the watchers to the Black Tuesday that happened in Russia this week and saw the Russian Rouble cheapening by 10%. For 3 days, the Russian national currency has devalued 30-35%, cheapening 130% since the beginning of the year.

The NBM President reminded that since January 2014 the Moldovan Leu had devalued against USD by 20% only. “We have not had a rule that makes the purchase of certain amounts of foreign currency mandatory, since the floating Moldovan Leu becomes balanced on its own”, Dorin Dragutanu said. “But we have reserved the right to intervene if necessary and to provide banks with liquidity”, he said.