Central Bank official: Armenia maintains sanctions’ regimes without joining them

Armenia has not joined any sanctions’ program, but we follow all sanctions, we maintain the sanctions’ regimes without joining them. Garegin Gevorgyan, Director of the Financial System Stability and Regulation Directorate of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA), stated this at the Investment and Financial Forum on Tuesday.

Gevorgyan added that Armenia wants to become a hub for foreign securities trade.

"We [i.e. Armenia] are interested in the active development of the capital markets. But if we want to build a good system of institutional development of the capital market, then we have to start from the foundation. For that, it is indispensable to form the [Armenian national currency, the] dram market. The Armenian economy does not have a tool for determining the short-term price of the dram," said Gevorgyan.

In his view, the Armenian dram has been one of the most stable currencies in the world for 30 years. Gevorgyan assured that very major consequences from the point of view of inflation or deflation were not observed in Armenia.

"Our methodology is risk management. If deflation is more dangerous, then we work with it; the same applies to inflation. From this point of view, our methodology will not change; on the contrary, it will develop," said the CBA official.

He informed that investors are ready to invest, through pension funds, about 500 million euros in Armenia’s capital market—but if there are appropriate papers.

"All this is the money of local retail investors; that is, there is such a demand," Garegin Gevorgyan concluded.