Out of 143 currencies around the world, 80% saw devaluation during this year. Only 13 currencies strengthened against the USD, among which only 6 were strengthened by more than 1%. According to data by Bloomberg, the Venezuelan Bolivar saw the biggest devaluation at 99%, followed by the Argentinian Peso, the value of which slumped by 53% against the USD. Among the worst performing currencies of the year, the Turkish Lira is in third place, which dropped by 38% against the USD. The Brazilian Real dropped by 20% at the beginning of the year, the Russian Ruble by 15%, the Indian Rupee by 11%, and the Swedish Krona by 10%. The Philippine Peso fell by 8% this year.
The national currency of the world’s biggest economy, China, dropped approximately by 5% and the Euro by 3%.
US fiscal policies and the trade war have been identified as the main factors contributing to the currency depreciation of the above mentioned countries. The US federal reserves have increased the interest rates 7 times in the last 22 months. Last week, the US Federal Reserve raised the benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to a range of 2-2.25% and maintained the enforcement of a step-by-step adjustment of monetary policy. Following the decision of the central bank, the US Dollar index increased by 0.3% up to 94,508 points on Thursday.
In regard to the currencies of the region, August 2018, compared to the same period the previous year, saw the worst performing currencies ranked as: the Turkish Lira (falling by 39.4%) and the Russian Ruble (falling by 9.8%) but the Armenian Dram stayed relatively strong with a drop of 0.8%. However, the Azerbaijani Manat was marginally strengthened (by 0.3%). Devaluation of Lira and Ruble are due to sanctions by the USA.
In August, compared to the previous month, the Georgian Lari slumped by 3.5% against the USD and by 2.3% against the EURO. In comparison to the same period in 2017, in 2018 GEL depreciated against the USD by 5.4% and against the EURO by 3.2%. On 16th August this year, 1 USD amounted to 2.6343 GEL, which is the highest indicator of the year.
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