ArmInfo. For international institutional investors, the availability of the public debt market of Armenia is extremely important. On November 5, Nerses Yeritsyan, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia, stated this during a hearing in the commission on financial-credit and budgetary issues of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia.
According to him, the Central Bank has developed and proposed a document to increase the accessibility of foreign investors to the market of government debt obligations, however, due to lack of interest, the project has remained unrealized. Meanwhile, as the deputy chairman of the Central Bank noted, the opening of the market for institutional investors can be a serious impetus for the development of the country economy. Nerses Yeritsyan stated that one of the world's largest depositories is already servicing Armenian sovereign bonds and Armenia has good opportunities in this market. Yeritsyan complained that when considering the budget for the next year <everyone is interested in salaries>, while in his message the Central Bank raises very important medium and long-term tasks for which it does not see a manifestation of interest. The deputy chairman called on the Armenian parliament to consider these and other initiatives of the Central Bank, which could become incentives for the development of the capital market and the economy as a whole.
Note that according to ArmInfo, the government is currently developing a Government Debt Management Strategy, which will be presented to the public before the end of this year. The document is expected to reflect a change in the structure and volumes of internal and external debt.
Nerses Yertsyan also said that in 2020, the salary of Central Bank employees will increase by 2%. This is done to ensure consonance with the average increase in salaries in commercial banks of the country at the level of 8%. In addition, the Bank intends to reduce its administrative expenses. So, the cost of maintaining vehicles will decrease by 20%, for the rest - the decrease will be insignificant and will be about 1-2%. Under the capital expenditures program, it is envisaged to allocate 10-11 billion drams to finance the mechanisms of the mortgage market. For other capital expenditures, appropriations will be reduced by an average of 47%.