ARMENIA NOT BE ABLE TO ENSURE ZERO REFINANCING INTEREST RATE
/PanARMENIAN.Net/
22.07.2009 16:51 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia will not be able to provide zero
refinancing interest rate, Tigran Dzhrbashyan, director of
Development of Ameriabank told journalist today. According to him,
it involves settling of some problems related to measures against
inflation. "Secondly, I do not think that the policy of changing the
refinancing rate is effective in a crisis, the global experience shows
that policy of changing the refinancing interest rates does not lead
to relevant reduction of the rates on the market," he said.
According to Mr. Jrbashyan, the policy of authorities, in particular
of the Central Bank and the Government, leading to lower credit rates
is more effective in a crisis.
In addition, he noted that today’s conservative policies of economic
entities is conditioned not by high interest rates of credits, but
rather their inability to absorb the resources under available in
the banking system in the situation of uncertainty.
There is no lack of resources in Armenia’ s banking system, he
said. Armenian banks are excessively liquid and the problem is in
the distribution of these resources.
On 7 June the Central Bank of Armenia made a decision to reduce the
refinancing interest rate at 0.5 percentage points to 5.5 per cent
per annum. This is the fifth reduction of the refinancing interest
rate since March 3 this year. Announcing the return to the policy of
floating rate, the Central Bank raised the refinancing rate by one
percentage point, setting it at 7.75 per cent per annum. On April
7 the refinancing rate was reduced to 7.5 per cent, on May 12 – up
to 7.25 per cent per annum, on May 22 – at 1.0 percentage point to
6.25 per cent per annum. On June 9 the refinancing interest rate was
reduced at 0.25 percentage point to 6 per cent per annum.