Monday, December 1 2014 18:05
Parliamentary opposition criticizes Central Bank's monetary policy
ArmInfo. The Central Bank of Armenia neglected the interests of the population and business entities when revising the AMD exchange rate, MP from Prosperous Armenia Party Mikael Melkumyan said on Monday.
On Nov 24 the CB revised the AMD/USD exchange rate. As a result, USD grew by 16.6 points against AMD to 435 AMD/1 USD (the highest level since 2006). The CB's goal was to keep Armenian exports competitive and to boost employment in the country.
Melkumyan believes that the CB had no grounds for preventing AMD's fall. "It is for the market to decide if the CB's measure was in line with its floating rate policy. In any case, we were not ready for that and we may well face new slumps of AMD," the expert said.
MP from Armenian National Congress Vahagn Khachatryan said that the CB approached this problem from a theoretical point of view only. "Otherwise, it would not have revised the rate at the time when the parliament was discussing the next year's budget. The point is that the budget 2015 is based on the 411.26 AMD/1 USD rate and does not provide for any revisions. If the CB said that it was planning to depreciate AMD in order to stimulate exports, export-oriented companies would know how to act. Now nobody knows what to expect," Khachatryan said.
Economist Vilen Khachatryan said that in Mar 2009 too the CB did not warn anybody when it raised the USD rate by 20% (from 208 AMD to 363 AMD). "Then they explained that this would have triggered negative expectations and further depreciation. In due time we will know if this policy is wise," Khachatryan said.
He noted that the budget 2015 provides for just 5% change in the USD rate and forex risks of 2.2bln AMD.
On Sept 25 the Armenian Government approved draft national budget 2015, with 4.1% GDP growth and deficit equal to 2.34% of GDP. According to the budget, in 2015 GDP will make up 4.867bln AMD, revenues 1.184bln AMD or 24.33% of GDP (4.3% more than in 2014), expenses 1.298.6bln AMD (26.38% more than in 2014). Tax revenues will make up 95.5% of all revenues or 23.24% of GDP. GDP deflator will make up 3.3%, average annual inflation 4%, deficit 2.34% or 114.1bln AMD. National debt will total $4.953bln, wherein foreign debt will make up $4.129bln. Defense will get 21.4% of expenses, social sector and culture 47.9%, economy 9.1%. Industry is expected to grow by 3.7%, agriculture by 4.2%, construction by 2%, services by 4.5%.
По состонию на 1 декабр 2014 года на розничном валютном рынке Армении средний курс доллара к драму составлет 436,5 др./1$, курс евро -543 др./1EUR, курс рубл - 8,6др./1RUB. -0— Dec 1 2015 AMD/USD exchange rate made up 436.5 AMD/1 USD, EUR/AMD exchange rate 543 AMD/1 EUR, RUR/AMD exchange rate 8.6 AMD/1 RUR.
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