Payments and interest on the $1 billion loan that the Central Bank took with the Latin American Reserve Fund (FLAR), as well as fewer deposits from the Ministry of Finance, caused a decrease in international reserves of the country in June.
The balance of net reserves in June amounted to $7.68 billion, almost 13% of GDP.
In particular, during the second quarter, the balance of reserve assets decreased by $676.6 million, mainly as a result of the decrease in deposits from the Ministry of Finance ($512.1 million) and the payment of the service (principal and interest) of the credit received from FLAR ($140.2 million), “
explained the Central Bank.
During 2019, the exchange market has shown relative stability, with a recent trend towards appreciation of the colón.
As of June 19th, the accumulated net result of the private exchange market registered a surplus of $680.2 million ($871 million in the same period of 2018). This allowed the BCCR to make purchases to partially restore foreign currency sales to the non-banking public sector, which at that time demanded USD 534.9 million.
On the other hand, the exchange rate in Monex registered a cumulative variation of -3.8% and year-on-year of 3.3% last month. For this reason, the Central Bank has intervened in the exchange market to prevent the exchange rate from falling faster.