The upward trend of the dollar exchange rate took a nose dive Thursday, dropping ¢12 colones in one single day.
Since the beginning of the year we have seen a steady and sometimes abrupt change in the dollar exchange, moving from ¢510 in early January to Wednesday’s hight of ¢570. Thursday, however, the trend reversed.
According to experts and officials of the Central Bank (Banco de Central de Costa Rica – BCCR), the drop of almost ¢30 colones in Thursday morning trading in the wholesale market known as Monex, is due to several coincidental factors.
Cental Bank president, Rodrio Bolaños, explained that one of the factors is that larged international companies generally exchange large amounts of dollars to pay for taxes and salaries, affecting the market, lowering the price of the U.S. dollar in the country.
Bolaños also explained that the Bank’s is forecasting a reversal trend, a change in the behaviour that seen the exchange rate increase almost ¢60 colones in the last couple of months.
However, Bolaños made it clear that the dollar exchange is not expected to drop back down to the ¢500 level, where it remained parked for most of last year.
For now the Central Bank is expected to continue with its current policy of intervening when necessary, to avoid any “violent” variations in the exchange rate.
In the past cople of weeks the Central Bank has sold off more than US$300 million dollars to prevent the exchange rate from going any higher.
