CBA MEETS 73 OF 77 INTERNATIONAL TRANSPARENCY STANDARDS

AZG Armenian Daily
08/04/2008

Finance and Economy

Opening the presentation ceremony of the "Compliance of CBA
Transparency with International Standards" handbook head of the
Central Bank of Armenia Tigran Sarkisian said that the CBA meets 73
of 77 international standards.

Mr. Sarkisian added that the CBA partially meets one of the remaining
four transparency standards, and noted that the rest, are simply
inadmissible for Armenia nowadays.

CBA chairman Sarkisian stressed that transparency is one of the most
important criteria of democratic development in modern society. The
newly published guidebook presents the current situation of the CBA’s
transparency. "Back in the 80s central banks were mostly considered as
closed structures and the common citizens could hardly guess anything
about their activities. The idea of the central banks’ transparency
became popular after the 90s, when radical changes took place in the
world economy, particularly, in the financial sector, and central
banks started targeting inflation. The latter made the CB observe
the principles of transparency, in other words, understandable and
predictable policy for the society. For this purpose, it was necessary
to set the "rules of the game", and the public was to control the
level of the rules’ observance", Sarkisian said. He recalled that
the international standards in the banking sphere were elaborated in
1993-1999 by the major international finance structures as the Bank
of International Settlements, the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development, the Wold Bank, and the International Finance
Cooperation. In 1998 the International Monetary Fund summed up the
worked out standards and set requirements for all IMF member countries.

Mr. Sarkisian assured that as early as 1999 the CBA brought its
activity in line with the international standards. He added that
henceforth the CBA will regularly inform the public about the level of
CBA compliance with the international standards and requirements. "This
handbook is the CBA’s first attempt to be accountable to the public
and may serve an example for other departments. We are interested in
dissemination of this experience", Mr. Sarkisian noted.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress