The sale of for­eign ex­change by au­tho­rised deal­ers to the pub­lic de­clined by 5.7 per cent to US$4.92 bil­lion, the Cen­tral Bank said in its Mon­e­tary Pol­i­cy Re­port yes­ter­day.

The re­port, which is for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to Oc­to­ber 2024. al­so stat­ed that  au­tho­rised pur­chas­es amount­ed to US$3.72 bil­lion over the same pe­ri­od, a de­crease of 0.7 per cent com­pared to the same pe­ri­od in 2023.  

The Cen­tral Bank re­port­ed a gap be­tween the sale of for­eign of ex­change and the pur­chase of it of US$1.2 bil­lion, with the Bank sell­ing US$1.07 bil­lion to au­tho­rised deal­ers to fill the net sales gap.

The re­port fur­ther stat­ed the mar­gin­al de­crease in pur­chas­es of for­eign ex­change from the pub­lic fol­lowed a 0.3 per cent rise in con­ver­sions by en­er­gy com­pa­nies rel­a­tive to the same pe­ri­od in 2023. For the first ten months of the cal­en­dar year, pur­chas­es of for­eign ex­change from the en­er­gy sec­tor ac­count­ed for 72.7 per cent of to­tal for­eign cur­ren­cy pur­chas­es over US$20,000 in val­ue.  

The re­port out­lined that based on re­port­ed da­ta for trans­ac­tions over US$20,000, cred­it cards (43.7 per cent), en­er­gy com­pa­nies (17.1 per cent), re­tail and dis­tri­b­u­tion (15.8 per cent), and au­to­mo­bile com­pa­nies (5.3 per cent) made up the bulk of for­eign ex­change sales by au­tho­rised deal­ers to the pub­lic.  

The sale of for­eign ex­change for cred­it cards for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to Oc­to­ber 2024 to­taled US$2.15 bil­lion.

At the end of Oc­to­ber and in ear­ly No­vem­ber, Sco­tia­bank and RBC (T&T), cut the US-dol­lar spend­ing lim­its on their cred­it cards to US$2,000 and US$2,061 re­spec­tive­ly, fol­low­ing wide­spread com­plaints from the pub­lic about dif­fi­cul­ties in ac­cess­ing for­eign ex­change.

The re­port al­so high­light­ed that tight for­eign ex­change mar­ket con­di­tions con­tin­ued to in­flu­ence the out­turn for for­eign cur­ren­cy cred­it and de­posits.  

The Cen­tral Bank out­lined that the growth rate of for­eign cur­ren­cy cred­it, though still ro­bust, de­cel­er­at­ed slight­ly, record­ing a year-on-year in­crease of 23.8 per cent in Sep­tem­ber 2024 (down from 25.4 per cent in April).  

“Com­mer­cial bank for­eign cur­ren­cy lend­ing picked up pace (24.9 per cent), but the growth in non-bank for­eign cur­ren­cy lend­ing slowed con­sid­er­ably (10.3 per cent). Re­gard­ing for­eign cur­ren­cy cred­it to busi­ness­es, in Sep­tem­ber 2024 an in­crease of 30.7 per cent was ob­served, down from 33.4 per cent in April 2024. Based on pru­den­tial in­di­ca­tors mon­i­tored by the Cen­tral Bank, the growth ob­served in for­eign cur­ren­cy lend­ing, cur­rent­ly, does not sug­gest a buildup in fi­nan­cial risks,” the re­port de­tailed.

The re­port al­so ex­plained that labour mar­ket con­di­tions tight­ened some­what in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2024, re­sult­ing in an un­em­ploy­ment rate of 4.8 per cent com­pared to 3.7 per cent record­ed in the same quar­ter of 2023.  

“The high­er un­em­ploy­ment rate re­flect­ed a year-on-year de­cline in the num­ber of per­sons em­ployed (26,700) and an in­crease in the num­ber of un­em­ployed per­sons (5,900). Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, the labour force con­tract­ed by 20,800 per­sons, re­sult­ing in a labour force par­tic­i­pa­tion rate of 54.5 per cent, down from 56.2 per cent in the cor­re­spond­ing quar­ter one year ear­li­er. Na­tion­al in­sur­ance scheme (NIS) pay­ments al­so de­clined by 5.6 per cent (year-on-year) in the sec­ond quar­ter of 2024, sug­gest­ing gen­er­al­ly weak­er em­ploy­ment dur­ing the pe­ri­od,” it stat­ed.

The Cen­tral Bank’s mon­e­tary pol­i­cy stance re­mained broad­ly un­changed. At its Sep­tem­ber 2024 meet­ing, the Mon­e­tary Pol­i­cy Com­mit­tee (MPC) main­tained the re­po rate at 3.50 per cent – un­changed since March 2020.