ARMENIAN PRIME MINISTER, CBA CHAIRMAN AND MINISTER OF ECONOMY SHOULD RESIGN, ECONOMIST ANDRANIK TEVANIAN SAYS
Noyan Tapan
M arch 4, 2009
YEREVAN, MARCH 4, NOYAN TAPAN. The current economic situation in
Armenia is mainly conditioned by the economic policy of Armenian
government and the monetary policy of the Central Bank of Armenia
(CBA) rather than by international financial and economic crisis,
economist Andranik Tevanian stated at the March 4 press conference. In
his words, the international processes have conditioned the economic
processes in Armenia by 10-20%, while the rest is the consequence of
the internal policy.
A. Tevanian said that March 3rd can be called a "black Tuesday". In
his words, there was total anarchy in the country yesterday as the two
persons responsible for Armenian economy – the president and prime
minister did not speak at all about the floating exchange rate. The
economist reminded that as early as mid 2008 there were opinions
about the need to pass to a controlled floating exchange rate, that
is, to raise the exchange rate by 5-10 drams every week, which would
not cause shocks, and reserves of 370 million dollars would not be
wasted. However, the representatives of authorities considered this
step as wrong. Now, according to A. Tevanian, the situation is fatal,
and the reserves were spent, reaching a billion USD mark.
He expressed an opinion that the steps taken by the authorities
are related to criminology rather than to economics. "I will ask
the prosecutor’s office to open a criminal case and find out how it
happened that only a day ago people sold more than 31 million dollars
at 307 drams a dollar on the stock exchange, while the following day
the CBA sold the dollar at 372 drams," Tevanian said. In his opinion,
the concrete officials should be held accountable for that, and the
prime minister, the chairman of the CBA and the minister of economy
should resign. Besides, according to him, the prosecutor’s office
should reveal the main purchasers of dollars in the past 5 days, as
well as the amount of capital outflow from Armenia during that period.