Population of Uzbekistan prefers to convert savings into USD due to UZS’s volatility

In Uzbekistan, the proportion of the population who prefers to store savings on deposits of commercial banks in foreign currency has grown, the Central Bank’s report on inflation expectations of the population for Q2 says.

In June, the number of people wishing to convert their savings into cash dollars reached 26%, the highest figure since the beginning of the year.
   
During the reporting period, the share of respondents who prefer to keep savings on deposits in the national currency, decreased by 3% (amounted to 29%). Against this background, the share of those who prefer to keep savings on deposits in foreign currency increased from 12% to 16%.

The Central Bank noted that the trend in the exchange rate of the national currency was very different from last year’s trend, which, in turn, influenced the structure of savings preferences of the population.

Thus, the expectations of survey participants at the exchange rate were formed under the influence of uncertainty regarding the level of volatility of the national currency in future periods. At the same time, the population’s expectations at the year-end exchange rate remained practically unchanged compared to March indicators and remained at the level of 8,729 soums/dollars, while the expectations of entrepreneurs increased by 112 soums and amounted to 8,768 soums/dollars.