Exchange Rate
The Maltese pound/lira was on a par with the British pound sterling (GBP) until the late 1970s, since then the lira had been allowed to float, anchored to a basket of reserve currencies. The lira had subsequently been worth around £1.60 sterling. After the Kuwaiti dinar, it was the second-highest-valued currency unit in the world, being worth US$3.1596 as of 28 April 2007. After the dollar weakened against other currencies in mid 2006, the lira was worth US$3.35289 as of 16 December 2007.
The currency entered the ERM II on 2 May 2005, by which its value had to be maintained within a 15% band around the central parity rate of 0.429300 LM per euro. The Central Bank of Malta and Maltese Government unilaterally decided to keep the actual LM/euro exchange rate equal to the central parity rate (i.e., doing away with the 15% band) throughout the ERM II period.
The irrevocable fixed conversion rate was established by the ECOFIN on 10 July 2008, at 0.4293 lira to one euro.
Read more about this topic: Maltese Lira
Famous quotes containing the words exchange and/or rate:
“To coöperate in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means to get our living together. I heard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he went, before the mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or coöperate, since one would not operate at all. They would part at the first interesting crisis in their adventures.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)