The global crisis actually emphasized the main weaknesses of the Macedonian economy, such as the high concentration of the export in non-propulsive activities, completely dependant on the movements on the international market and, of course, the trade deficit financing through vulnerable and hardly predictable private transfers. The blow these two components suffered from the decrease in the world economy meant significant widening of the deficit on the current account, which reached 13.1% of the GDP in 2008. These trends continued also in the first part of 2009 and together with the decrease in the capital inflows created serious pressures on the foreign reserves. It reflected directly on the confidence in the stability of the national currency. Thus in the first quarter of 2009, the demand for foreign exchange went up by 77% compared to the supply of foreign exchange. The increased misbalance on the foreign exchange market was equilibrated with the National Bank interventions on the foreign exchange market, in the amount of Euro 230 million, only during the first quarter. Moreover, we were forced to undertake measures to adjust the monetary instruments in function of foreign exchange rate stability maintenance. At the end of March, we adopted a decision on increasing the interest rate on the core monetary instrument – the CB bills from 7% to 9%.
Such a monetary reaction was motivated by the need for increasing the attractiveness of the CB bills, in order to redirect the Denar liquidity from the foreign exchange market and to ease the pressures on the foreign exchange rate. Although after the increase in the core interest rate of the National Bank, from the beginning of the second quarter, moderate stabilization of the movements on the foreign exchange market was registered and the demand for foreign exchange began to decrease, however, also during April and May, the interventions of the National Bank on the foreign exchange market continue to reduce to net sale of foreign exchange. Simultaneously, the trend of currency conversion of the households' savings from national into foreign currency continued, indicating that although after the culmination in March (during the presidential and local elections) the psychological pressures began to ease, they are not completely depleted. Such accomplishments were the reason for additional intervention with new measures. In May, we increased the reserve requirement allocation rate for the banks' liabilities with currency component, as follows: for liabilities in foreign currency, from 10% to 13%, and for the liabilities in domestic currency with FX clause, from 10% to 20%. The undertaken measures should stimulate the Denar saving and we expect to cause change in the trend of accumulation of foreign assets by the banks, which would contribute to decrease in the demand for foreign exchange and to stabilization on the foreign exchange market. And definitely, part of the expectations is already happening.