May 11 (SeeNews) - Macedonia's central bank sold on Wednesday 20.7 billion denars ($385.6 million/337.3 million euro) in 35-day central bank (CB) bills, below a target of 22 billion denars due to insufficient demand, central bank data indicated on Wednesday.
The coupon on the CB bills, which serves as Macedonia's benchmark interest rate, was 4%, up from 3.25% at the previous auction held in April, the central bank, NBRM, said on its website.
Last week, the NBRM's Operational 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.
Details follow (in billions of denars):
auction date |
May 11 |
April 13 |
maturity date |
June 15 |
May 11 |
amount offered |
22.0 |
25.5 |
bids placed |
20.7 |
24.6 |
amount sold |
20.7 |
24.6 |
CB bills, worth 24.6 billion denars are maturing on May 11.
(1 euro=61.4835 denars)