Economist: It is necessary to reduce interest rates of bank loans
The government today decided to allocate AMD10 billion from the state budget to the Central Bank as the CB lacks resources. Speaking in the Cabinet sitting on Thursday, Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan said the decision was taken on Wednesday evening during his meeting with Serzh Sargsyan. “The Central Bank feeds on the resources of other banks, and perhaps the money was needed to that aim,” economist Vilen Khachatryan said to A1+. The economist says every year the Central Bank is given a certain amount of money to cover the necessary expenses and it may have encountered unforeseen problems connected, for example, with overdue loan obligations. “But according to the CB’s report for 2014 the Bank’s assets have grown significantly,” Mr Khachatryan continued reminding that the main bank is an opaque structure and we cannot know the exact cause of a problem. “It is also necessary to reduce interest rates of bank loans which have already reached 19 % while the volume of loans has fallen by95-100 billion drams,” he added. Asked whether the problem could be caused by the appreciation of the Armenian dram, the economist said he did not think so. “They sold Eurobonds and enriched the reserves by 200 million dollars. Mr Khachatryan says some banks in Armenia today refuse to give their clients money because bank employees do not have the requested sum at their disposal. “Perhaps, if clients telephone in advance and say how much money they want to withdraw from the accounts, there will not be such problems,” the specialist said adding that there is no need to panic and rush to banks to withdraw money.
