The National Bank of Macedonia has held its third session today.

At its today's session, the Council adopted the Decision on the authenticity and fitness checking and recirculation of banknotes and coins. This Decision aims to prescribe, establish and unify standards and quality criteria for currency in circulation, to specify the manner of checking their authenticity, as well as to set universal criteria classifying fit and unfit currency for circulation during their machine and manual handling. Moreover, this decision is a part of the Project for compliance, convergence and harmonization of the national legislation with the EU legislation and gradual introduction of the European criteria and quality standards for processing currencies.

At the session held today, the Council also reviewed certain bylaws that relate to the positioning of foreign currency market. Namely, the Decision on the manner and the terms for buying and selling foreign currency in the Republic of Macedonia defines the basic features of the purchase and sale of foreign currency and regulates, in more detail, the aspects of interbank foreign exchange market and the National Bank's interventions in the foreign exchange market. Additionally, in order to include banks that make up the core of the foreign exchange market, requirements have been set for selecting a market maker. Moreover, unlike the current legislation that requires trading in only ten currencies on the foreign exchange market, the new decision allows concluding transactions in foreign currency denominated in currencies of the exchange rate list of the National Bank that now includes all currencies published by the European Central Bank. Given the strategic objective of the Republic of Macedonia to join the European Union, the Council adopted a new Decision on the manner of establishing and publishing the exchange rates of the National Bank of the Republic of Macedonia, thus extending the range of currencies against which the Denar exchange rate will be published, by adding new currencies whose rates are published by the European Central Bank.

The Council also adopted a Decision on issuing a collector coin "Cyril and Methodius", and a Decision on issuing a collector coin "Lion" of the zodiac coin series. The "Cyril and Methodius" icon coins will be denominated in 100 denars and 1000 denars, while the "Lion" coin will be denominated in 10 denars. Given their high quality, the issuance of collector coins will contribute to a better presentation of the country both domestically and internationally.

The Council also considered other matters within its jurisdiction.

Governor's Office