YEREVAN, October 23. / ARKA /. Armenia’s Central Bank may revise its key refinancing rate (downward) depending on the scale of external risks, Tigran Jrbashyan, Ameriabank marketing director, said to ARKA. On October 9 the Central Bank left its refinancing rate unchanged at 8%.
“Today, the situation in the European Union is developing under an optimistic scenario as Greece looks to be coming out of the turmoil, and at this moment there are no signals that the situation may worsen. This in mind I believe that in a few months the Central Bank may revise its refinancing rate downward, “ Jrbashyan said at a press conference on Tuesday.
According to him, the main deterring factor for the Central Bank today is the monetary policy.
“Today we have a paradoxical situation. In fact, for many years we saw seasonality in the foreign exchange market, reflected especially in September, and this year, based on a number of both external and internal factors, including the unprecedented growth in the agriculture, we are not seeing this effect,” he said, explaining that, in view of a reduction trend in interest rates, the Central Bank has decided to mitigate the decline.
“In December, we usually have an interesting situation at foreign exchange market, but this year the foreign exchange market model is breaking all possible projections based on past experience, and I think that it may be worthwhile to review the refinancing rate,” he said.
Last time the Central Bank changed refinancing rate was on September 6, 2011, when it brought it down from 8.5 percent to 8 percent. -0-
