Central Bank of Armenia does not rule out revising the refinancing rate in 2019

ArmInfo. The Central Bank of Armenia does not rule out revising the refinancing rate in 2019. On June 19, Governor of the Central Bank of Armenia Arthur Javadyan stated this from the rostrum of the National Assembly of Armenia.

According to him, it is possible that the refinancing rate will again be lowered, but today, at this stage, it is premature to talk about it. In general, many factors affect the interest rates of the Central Bank, starting with geopolitical risks, external influences of international markets, published data by the US Federal Reserve, trade wars, and ending with the growth of the country's economy, Javadyan said.

Over the past few years, the Head of CBA continued, the refinancing rate tended to decline. So, from 9.7% in 2015, it dropped to 7.7% in 2016, and then followed by a decrease to 6% in 2017 and this level was maintained throughout 2018, after which another decrease followed in late January 2019 - to 5.75% unchanged to this day. This rate has an impact on the regulatory rate. Each year, the Central Bank Council discusses this issue 8 times, the last time it happened on June 11 with the decision to leave the refinancing rate unchanged. However, in view of the development of events, the head of the Central Bank did not rule out that this year the rate will again be reduced.

"In Armenia, there is a problem of dollarized mentality, as evidenced by the dominance of the dollar component in the total volume of bank deposits and loans, respectively, about 60% and about 50%. We need to get rid of this mentality," A. Javadyan said. Recently, he said, there has been an increase in confidence in national values, and there is confidence in the growth of confidence in national currency.