CBA CHAIRMAN ATTACHES IMPORTANCE TO QUALITY RATHER THAN QUANTITY OF CREDITS

Noyan Tapan
Apr 04 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 4, NOYAN TAPAN. Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia
(CBA) Tigran Sargsian is not worried by the fact that acoording
to a report of Fitch Rating company, Armenia is in the last place
in the world by the ratio of crediting to GDP. Responding to NT
correspondent’s question, he said that "the quality rather than
quantity of credits is important."

In his words, the quality of credits provided in the Armenian banking
system is much higher than, for example, "in neighboring countries
because our approach to classification of credits is much stricter."

In the opinion of T. Sargsian, "if our rules of crediting are
introduced in neighboring countries, the amount of their credit
investments will sharply decline." And vice versa, "if we change our
methods of credit investment calculation and use methods of neighboring
countries, the amount of our credits will increase. But we consciously
do not follow this path."

To recap, in 2006 the crediting/GDP ratio made 9.2% in Armenia, 12.4%
in Azerbaijan, and 20.6% in Georgia.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress