Meeting at the Committee

National Assembly of RA, Armenia
April 20 2006

On June 16 parliamentary hearings are envisaged to organize in the
National Assembly dedicated to the activity of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) in Armenia. Such an agreement was reached at April
20 meeting of Gagik Minasyan, Chairman of the NA Standing Committee on
Financial-Credit, Budgetary and Economic Affairs and James McHugh, IMF
Resident Representative in Armenia. It is planned that IMF officials,
representatives from legislative and executive bodies, NGOs, Central
Bank and business world will participate at the open discussions
organized by the committee. Gagik Minasyan is confident that the
discussions will be effective and sharp: the cooperation of Armenia
and IMF has both supporters and opponents. As the sides assessed,
the parliamentary hearings can be very useful for the public: the
representatives of the fund will inform about their cooperation and
programmes with the executive body, a brief package on expenses and
received results will be provided. Gagik Minasyan considered necessary
to have prepared a comparative document on the fund activity in CIS
countries. He also considered important that in parallel with the
State Statistical Service the estimated indices of the international
authoritative structure would also be introduced.

Recently in Washington the presentation of the publication prepared
by IMF describing the economic growth of Armenia, monetary-credit
policy, the process of economic reforms was organized. The book is
also envisaged to translate into Armenian.

In June Rodrigo de Rato y Figaredo, IMF Managing Director, will visit
Armenia. On June 15-16 the meeting of 12 states’ group will also be
held. These are the countries, which Holland represents in IMF.

As the IMF Resident Representative noted they have a wish to
enlarge the relationship with the parliament, make their policy
more transparent.