THE CENTRAL BANK IS NOT TO BE PRESSED

A1+
[01:12 pm] 23 May, 2006

No pressure was exerted by the President’s Office during the change of
banks with sole administration into banks with group administration,
claims Vache Gabrielyan, member of the Council of the Central Bank
(CB).

Let us remind you that Tigran Sargsyan, president of the CB confessed
that there are a few banks that are categorically against the
corporative administration but he assured that he will make them
do it. Even the heads of commercial and central banks met with the
President for consultation on this score. Kocharyan supported their
approach that corporative administration may not go in line with
the subjective interests of the organization owners. “No, we are not
subjected to any pressure by the President,” repeated Vache Gabrielyan.

Today a seminar was initiated on this score by the International
Financial Corporation (IFC). IFC is a substructure of the World
Bank and deals with the problems of developing countries. IFC
illustrated a number of examples in order to make the representatives
of banks invited to the seminar realize the importance of adopting
the principles of group administration and what prospects of better
life it will suggest them. IFC studied 21 companies in Russia and
found out that they registered a fantastic increase of the bank’s
value by 70 000% after they had improved their worst corporative
administration by raising it to the best one.

Among Armenian banks “ArmEconomBank” applies the tools of corporative
administration, and “HSBC” has a group administration. This information
was presented by Vache Gabrielyan.

The expenditure of the three-day seminar was compensated by three
commercial banks along with the Government of the Netherlands and RA
Central Bank.