ArmInfo. The Government of Armenia and the Central Bank of the Republic have reached agreement on the issue of expanding credit for the development of micro- business.
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said this on February 12 in the country's parliament, answering the question of the deputy from the Prosperous Armenia Party faction Karine Poghosyan about the difficult situation in the field of agriculture.As the deputy noted, the credit agricultural programs financed by the country's commercial banks, whether short-term or long-term, are usually initially failed due to high interest rates. International financial institutions provide Armenia with very inexpensive resources, and commercial banks refinance farmers at incredibly high interest rates.
"Maybe that's why 1/3 of agricultural land is simply not cultivated?" - the deputy asked.In response, Nikol Pashinyan noted that the expected size of the microbusiness assistance program with the Central Bank will be 10 billion drams. A significant part of these resources will be addressed to villagers in order to overcome rural poverty.The Prime Minister also recalled the changes in the Tax Code, according to which about 130 thousand beneficiaries, including farmers, were forgiven overdue loans, and their bad credit histories were closed.On the other hand, as Nikol Pashinyan noted, the government is adopting a policy of lowering interest rates.
Moreover, the executive body will continue to implement programs for subsidizing agricultural loans. "In general, our policy is not to assist in growing the crop, but to export it, as a result, the income of the peasants will increase significantly, and they will have the motivation to grow apricots without any government involvement," said Nikol Pashinyan.It should be noted that according to the information of Finrating IC ArmInfo, as of October 1, 2018, the total volume of agricultural loans left 178.9 billion drams ($ 371.4 million), with an annual growth of 21%. Meanwhile, the volume of non-performing agro-loans (NPL) in the total agro-loan portfolio of banks was 26% versus 22% a year earlier. However, the volume of bad loans in the total amount of non-performing loans was 32.7%.