MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ICF RODRIGO DE RATO: ARMENIA MOVES FORWARD BY CONFIDENT STEPS IN RIGHT DIRECTION

Yerevan, June 19. ArmInfo. RA Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan has
met with Rodrigo de Rato, the Managing Director of the International
Currency Fund.

During the meeting, Andranik Margaryan highly appreciated the level of
RA cooperation with ICF and the World Bank just after the Armenia’s
gaining independence. The reforms in a number of spheres, carried
out by these organizations, allowed to achieve sufficient results in
economy and to fix a progress, to start implementation of the strategic
program for poverty-fight, to fix an economic growth, etc. A. Margaryan
called RA joining the World Trade Organization in 2003 one of the
examples of such a cooperation, which became a serious stimulus for
activation of trade relations and attraction of foreign investments.

According to Margaryan, a sufficient growth of export volume has been
already fixed in 2005 as a result of successive increase of export,
compared to the previous years. Moreover, as a result of cooperation
with international organizations, Armenia is recognized a country with
average level of income per head, according to the WB’s classification,
and it took the 27th place in 2005 among 157 countries of the world
on liberalization of economy and is recognized a "free country, in
general". A. Margaryan noted the significance of ICF assistance to
the policy of inflation mitigation, carried out by the RA Central Bank.

In his turn, Rodrigo de Rato assured A. Margaryan that the annual
meeting of ICF and WB representatives, being held these days in
Yerevan, is conducted efficiently and in a constructive situation. He
also positively evaluated the results of Armenia-ICF cooperation for
the past years, the level of economic growth in Armenia, reduction
of the foreign debt volume and decrease of the poverty level in the
country. According to him, Armenia moves forward wit confident steps
in aright direction. He also highly appreciated the level of economic
reforms, implemented in Armenia. The meeting participants noted the
importance of such meetings for both the assessment of the work done
and for specification of the following steps.