On 25.12.1997, the Council of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia held its LXII session, at which various issues from the monetary and foreign exchange areas were discussed.
Skopje, 25 December 1997
Press release of the NBRM
On 25.12.1997, the Council of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia held its LXII session, at which various issues from the monetary and foreign exchange areas were discussed.
In accordance with the monetary policy projection for 1998, the Council of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia took a Decision for increasing the denar placements of banks and savings houses extended to subjects from the private and social sector as well as to citizens, up to 2,2% at the end of January, up to 1,2% at the end of February and up to 0,6% at the end of March compared to 30.11.97.
At the same time, in order to eliminate the existence of unused credit limits from separate banks, and in conditions when there is an increased interest for higher credit activity with banks which completely used their credit limits, there will be a possibility for exchange of the unused part of the permitted growth of denar placements among banks. If even then a large part of the permitted growth of denar placements remains unused, the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia shall distribute the unused part among the banks.
The Council of NBRM also considered and adopted the draft-measures which should be undertaken in order to decrease the high participation of cash in the money supply and in total goods and money transactions. For that purpose, the Council of NBRM defined the following measures: organizing an integral project for introduction and affirmation of contemporary instruments for non-cash payment; increasing the scope of services to be paid with non-cash instruments of payment; intensifying the reforms in the payment operations, as well as reviewing the existing legal regulation in respect of limiting the amount which legal persons can pay in cash. Since part of the measures are not under the jurisdiction of the national Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, the Council decided that the Central Bank should submit the proposed measures to the relevant institutions (Bureau for Payment Operations, Ministry of Finance, Tax Revenue Office). Regarding the measures from the scope of operations of the financial institutions, the Council proposed that the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia together with the Association for Banking and Insurance should organize a meeting in order to determine the activities for their operativeness.
Finally, the Council considered and approved the Information for investing part of the foreign exchange reserves in Government securities through distinguished foreign financial institutions. In this respect, it was stated that the basic criteria in investing the foreign exchange reserves are security and liquidity of those investments. On this basis, funds of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia have been placed in foreign banks which rank among the best 200 banks in the world, as well as in banks the shareholders of which are banks from the Republic of Macedonia, with which an intensive financial cooperation has been developed in the past years.
The Council adopted the Decision on temporary financing of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia in the period from January 1, 1998 until the adoption of the financial plan of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia for 1998.
National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia Council