Thursday, February 16 2017 14:32

ArmInfo. Armenian Minister of Agriculture Ignaty Arakelyan does not yet know how to settle the problem of overdue agricultural loans.    

Arakelyan said at today's press conference in Yerevan that the given issue is under the jurisdiction of the Central Bank and commercial banks. He added that the discussions on this issue are still underway and the situation is being analyzed. He said that the opinion about high credit rates (24%) is not correct. The matter concerns the financial structures, which provide short-term loans. "The farmers apply to those structures and receive loans at high interest rates.  Afterwards they come across problems and the state cannot hinder that process. The banks also find themselves in a hard situation, coming across the problem of loan default," the minister said.           

According to the CB, in 2016 the overdue loans in Armenian banks dropped by 15.6% (by 30.5% in Q4 alone) to 31.9 bln AMD. By 2017, the share of overdue loans made up 1.32% versus 1.81% a year before.  In 2016, the banking system's lending grew by 17.6% and in Q4 alone - by 11.9% to 2.280 trillion AMD.  Overdue and extended loans inclusive, the total amount of lending made up 2.412 trillion AMD. The average annual interest rate of AMD loans was 15.38% in Dec 2016 versus 15.36% a year before. (On 31 Dec 2016 the AMD/USD exchange rate was 483.94 AMD/$1).