Addis Ababa: The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) announced that it has concluded the Special Foreign Exchange Auction held today with a weighted average rate of Birr 107.9 per USD. In its statement, the central bank said the auction saw the participation of 27 banks and the weighted average rate of all successful bids was Birr 107.9 per US Dollar. Per NBE's daily practice of updating exchange rates based on FX market activity in the banking system, transactions conducted under today's auction will be reflected in the Indicative Daily Exchange Rate posted tomorrow August 8, 2024, it added. According to the statement, NBE Governor Mamo Mihretu said that the bank is pleased to see a substantial narrowing of the gap between bank exchange rates and parallel market rates over the past week, as well as meaningful progress towards exchange rate stability. "This is precisely what our macroeconomic reforms intended to achieve - namely to ensure that most FX transaction activity can shift to the banking system, ther eby helping both exporters bringing in foreign exchange as well as the many companies and entrepreneurs seeking foreign exchange." The governor also welcomed the encouraging growth seen in the volume of FX transaction. Mamo stated that NBE is also pleased to see a growing number of banks, making foreign exchange available to their customers by approving past import requests and accepting new import requests. "We anticipate and indeed expect more banks to follow this trend over the coming weeks, and they will do so with increasingly larger FX volumes." Source: Ethiopian News Agency