ARMENIAN CB TO CONTINUE CLEANING COUNTRY’S INSURANCE SECTOR IN 2007

Arka News Agency, Armenia
Feb 20 2007

YEREVAN, February 20. /ARKA/. The Central Bank of Armenia intends
to continue the strategy of cleaning the country’s insurance sector,
reported Tigran Sargsyan at the fourth International economic forum
Bridge 2007 on Saturday.

He pointed out that the CBA is creating a new basis for insurance
companies and begins this activity from cleaning this sector. "Over
the past year we managed to close about 1000 insurance companies
whose activity did not meet our requirements.

In this connection, Sargsyan pointed out that the experience of
cleaning the bank sector proves that "the tougher the regulator’s
actions, the faster develop those under regulation.

"The more banks we close, the higher has been the increase in the
capital of bank sector and amount of credits. Despite the fact that
we closed 10-15 banks a year, the amount of loans provided and the
amount of capital increased twice," he said and added that this is
the main aspect of competitiveness.

The fourth International economic forum was held in the resort town
of Tsakhkadzor on February 17-18, 2007.