RESULTS OF COOPERATION WITH IMF OBVIOUS FOR ARMENIA, RA PRIME MINISTER DECLARES

YEREVAN, JULY 27, NOYAN TAPAN. On July 26, RA Prime Minister Andranik
Margarian met with IMF Resident Representative James McHugh finishing
his mission in Armenia. Andranik Margarian positively estimated RA
government-IMF cooperation during 4 years of J.McHugh’s tenure. He
said that the positive results of this cooperation are obvious
in Armenia. In RA Prime Minister’s words, RA government and this
authoritative international financial organization were able to find
solutions to a number of problems with joint efforts.

J.McHugh emphasized that RA government managed to solve many problems
and to register progress over the past four years. He mentioned
the financial difficulties of RA government at the beginning of his
tenure, the great debts on pensions and salaries accumulated by the
state, the high level of unemployment and a number of other problems
the most of which are solved today. "Now the Armenian government is
not only free of debts, but also has some savings at the end of a
year, progress is registered in the fulfilment of Poverty Reduction
Strategic Program’s goals, reduction of abject poverty level, stable
economic growth is registered," IMF resident representative said at
his meeting with RA Prime Minister.

Now, in his words, there are new challenges and problems, in the
direction of which great work should be done. J.McHugh also presented
IMF’s future programs in Armenia mentioning that IMF missions will
arrive in Armenia in the future on issues of estimating fufilment
of commitments by RA government, providing technical assistance,
on monitoring of the financial sector, statistics, etc.

A.Margarian considered useful the visits of the above mentioned
missions to Armenia emphasizing that they fully coincide with the
priorities of RA government’s economic policy and the joint work
within the framework of the visit can be rather efficient.

As Noyan Tapan was informed from RA government Information and Public
Relations Department, J.McHugh presented RA Prime Minister IMF new
representative in Armenia who has an experience of about 5 years’
activity in the fund and works at IMF Policy Estimation Department. The
latter is also engaged in problems of the Poverty Reduction Strategic
Program and crediting, which, as

J.McHugh said, corresponds to the current problems and goals of
Armenia.