IT IS TIME TO THINK ABOUT NEW PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM, IMF MISSION HEAD SAYS

Noyan Tapan
Jun 29 2007

YEREVAN, JUNE 29, NOYAN TAPAN. The Armenian prime minister Serge
Sargsian on June 28 received the head of the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) mission Martha Castelo-Branco and the delegation headed
by her, NT was informed by the RA Government Information and PR
Department.

M. Castelo-Branco appreciated Armenia’s cooperation with the IMF since
1992 when the country joined the IMF. She underlined that in the IMF’s
opinion, Armenia has registered a considerable growth and conducted
a reasonable tax-budgetary and monetary-credit policy. In her words,
Armenia’s currency exchange rate police has been most flexible as
compared with other regional countries.

At the same time M. Castelo-Branco said that there are still some
challenges, and serious efforts should be made to overcome them. In
particular, among such challenges are the difficulty of maintaining
the two-digit economic growth rates registered in recent years,
the review of tax collection ratio (with a tendency to increase it),
internal competition, problems connected to monopolies, improvement
of the business environment, which in its turn includes a number of
issues: accessibilty of credits, improvement of infrastructures.

The IMF mission head attached importance to the identification of
possible risks and the implementation of steps aimed at overcoming of
these risks, around which discussions are being conducted with the RA
minsitry of finance and economy and the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA).

The IMF program in Armenia will be completed in May 2008. According
to M. Castelo-Branco, it is time to think about the next partnership
program. She attached special importance to such directions as
improvement of tax administration, extension of the tax base,
development of the financial market, and fight agains the shadow
economy. She underlined that the IMF is ready to assist with solution
of these problems and will continue to promote the reforms aimed
at stabilizing Armenia’s macroeconomic, particularly, payment and
settlement system.

The Armenian prime minister in his turn said that henceforth
the IMF’s experience and recommendation will also be useful for
Armenia. According to S. Sargsian, all indices, which the Armenian
government will discuss with the IMF, will be fulfilled.