Armenia not be able to ensure zero refinancing interest rate

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.