YEREVAN. – Haykakan Zhamanak wrote that it received reports, from different regions of Armenia, that there is a shortage of cash Armenian drams, the national currency.   

“This is due to two factors: First, the people have received the year-end salaries and they are cashing them in full for the New Year shopping.

“And since the CB [i.e., the Central Bank] recently increased the percentages for the mandatory reserve of the dram, the banks [in Armenia] were forced to hand a huge part of the dram they had over to the CB in order to reserve, and [therefore] they are experiencing a shortage of cash drams.   

“According to our information, to solve this problem, numerous banks have been forced to sell the foreign currency at their disposal, and, in this way, the situation had begun to be resolved.  

“All this, however, makes many people think that the financial market [in Armenia] has not yet overcome the December shock,” Haykakan Zhamanak wrote. 

The dollar and euro exchange rates had reached record highs in Armenia on December 17, but they have dropped ever since the same evening.