ArmInfo. Armenian Agriculture Minister Ignatiy Arakelyan discussed with Chairman of Converse Bank's Board Armen Ter-Tachatyan and member of the Board Juan Carlos Ozcoidi pilot program on agricultural lending, the press-service of the ministry informs.
The Minister briefly presented development priorities of agricultural sector set by the new governmental program and attached significant importance to involvement of private sector in the activities through implementation of joint programs.
Juan Carlos Ozcoidi for his part mentioned the programs being already implemented with the bank's assistance, particularly in the field of milk production. He also proposed to create "agricultural table", around which representatives of producers, milk processing farms, the state and financial structures will gather for discussions. After this he proposed to develop vector of implementation of the pilot program. The member of the Converse Bank Board also expressed readiness to immediately proceed with implementation of the program.
According to the Ranking of Armenian Banks prepared by ArmInfo aggregate investments of the banks in agriculture totaled 159.8 bln drams ($335.3 mln) as of July 1 2016 or 7% from the total loan portfolio of the banks. Converse Bank is among top-10 by amount of agricultural loans-3.6 bln drams with 33.3% y-o-y growth. The share of agricultural loans in loan portfolio of Converse Bank exceeds 4%.
