The Slovak koruna firmed slightly against the euro. It opened at 40.12 a gradually strengthened to 40.035 EUR/SKK. It might have been backed also by an auction of the government bonds with 15-year maturity. As expected, it ignored the July state budget data, which showed that the deficit narrowed to SKK 18.6 bn from 31.2 bn in the first seven months of 2003. At the end of the day, the koruna just slightly corrected to 40.08. The market is balanced at the moment and we expect the exchange rate to remain within the range of 40.00 to 40.20 EUR/SKK.
(CSOB Investment research)