ARMECONOMBANK BECOMES FIRST ARMENIAN BANK TO RECEIVE INTERNATIONAL RATING

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 23, NOYAN TAPAN. Armeconombank has become the first
Armenian bank to receive E+ stability rating and B1 rating of long-term deposits in
Armenian drams and foreign currency from Moody’s Investors Service company.
The Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) Tigran Sargsian said during
the February 23 press conference that these ratings are quite high for a
bank operating in a country with transitional economy. According to him,
investors have the opportunity of assessing clearly the risks of cooperation with
banks with international ratings. He reminded that after assigning a
microecomomic stability rating to Armenia by Moody’s in 2006, it was annnounced that
several Armenian banks are in the rating process. The CBA chairman said that it
is expected that another three Armenian banks will receive Moody’s ratings
by late 2007. He added that in order to receive a high rating, banks should
increase their dram assets as well as "the amount of value created per
employee". The Executive Director of Armeconombank Davit Sukiasian noted that in
October 2006 Moody’s experts studied the work over done by Armeconombank over the
past three years. In his words, the ratings received will allow to attract
credits with low interest rates, as well as to attract resources through
securities placement on foreign stock excahnges. Particularly, Armeconombank is
conducting negotiations with a Swiss credit institution with the aim of
attracting one million dollars on favorable terms.