Maintaining macroeconomic and financial stability and deepening financial markets in local currency will be critical in helping to dedollarize the economy and raise the effectiveness of monetary policy, according to Guillermo Tolosa, IMF Resident Representative in Armenia.

“During the 2009 crisis, Armenian authorities successfully mitigated the negative impact on the population by appropriately pursuing countercyclical fiscal policy. These policies inevitably lead to a widening of the deficit, an increase in public debt, and contributed to the deterioration in the current account balance. With the onset of the global crisis and a postponement of the exchange rate adjustment in 2009, dollarization increased rapidly,” Mr. Tolosa told a news conference in Yerevan.

On March 3, 2009 CBA announced the shift to floating exchange rate policy.