Croatia's C-bank Intervenes on FX Market, Buys 1.3 Mln Euro from Banks

The banks had offered to sell a total of 235.1 million euro, the central bank said in a statement on its website.

On the market, the kuna was at 7.2624 to the euro in the early Tuesday afternoon trade, nearly unchanged from before the intervention, news agency Reuters reported.

The kuna had been strengthening over the last few days and the central bank's move was not a total surprise, a dealer at a local bank told Reuters.

It was the central bank's fourth intervention so far this year to prop up the kuna.

In February, it bought from banks 331.2 million euro at an average rate of 7.418995 Croatian kuna per euro. That same month, the bank sold to commercial banks 184.75 million euro at an average rate of 7.440584 kuna per euro. It also intervened on January 23 in order to stabilise the kuna exchange rate, selling 328.3 million euro at an average rate of 7.401083 kuna per euro.

($ = 0.677 euro)