September 14 (SeeNews) - Macedonia's central bank said on Wednesday it sold 22 billion denars ($40.1 million/35.7 million euro) in 28-day central bank (CB) bills, in line with target.
The coupon on the CB bills, which serves as Macedonia's benchmark interest rate, remained at 4%, flat from the previous auction of 28-day CB bills held on July 13, the central bank, NBRM, said on its website.
Details follow:
Auction date |
Sept 14 |
July 13 |
Maturity date |
Oct 12 |
Aug 10 |
Amount offered (bln denars) |
22 |
22 |
Amount sold (bln denars) |
22 |
21.35 |
Bids placed |
22 |
21.35 |
Interest rate |
4% |
4% |
A 35-day CB bill issue worth 22 bullion denars matured on September 14.
At the beginning of May, NBRM's monetary policy committee decided on a 75 basis point hike in the policy rate, which had stayed unchanged over the past four years, citing "increased demand for foreign currency and pressures on banks' deposit base, which were entirely due to the deteriorating expectations of economic agents, caused by the unstable political situation in the country".
The bank stressed that the tightened monetary policy stance was a response to factors of non-economic nature, whereas no major imbalances exist in the economy with all recent indicators pointing to solid economic and credit growth, without price or external sector pressures.
(1 euro=61.5766 denars)