October 17 (SeeNews) - Albania's central bank absorbed 23.64 billion leks ($274.3 million/193.0 million euro) in repo funds and injected 4.8 billion leks through direct Treasury bill purchases and repo deals in the second quarter of the year, the bank said on Wednesday.
"The central bank injected liquidity on a weekly basis [through repo deals] six times plus the usual injections through T-bill purchases," it said in a statement.
The central bank auctions repo funds at volume tenders, usually held on Thursdays, to regulate the liquidity in Albania's banking system.
In the second quarter the bank injected 2.8 billion leks through one-week repo deals and 2.0 billion leks through one-month repo deals. The bank absorbed 23.64 billion leks in one-week repo funds.
The central bank sold 2.1 billion leks worth of foreign currency to the government and bought from it 52.69 million leks worth of foreign currency in the second quarter in operations related to servicing Albania's foreign debt and improving the utilisation of foreign lending to the government. The bank also bought 85.93 million leks worth of foreign currency from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and from the World Bank's soft loan wing the International Development Agency.
(1 euro = 122.4868 Albanian leks)