Thu, 1 May
10.1 C
Yerevan
USD: 389.94 RUB: 4.80 EUR: 443.01 GEL: 141.85 GBP: 520.80
spot_img

Farm loan interest rates should be reduced from 14% to 5% in Armenia, expert says

YEREVAN, January 23./ARKA/. Rates of interest on loans extended to farms should be reduced from 14% to 5%, head of “Farmers’ Movement” NGO Sarkis Sedrakyan told a press conference Wednesday.

Under a government decree of April 1, 2011, Armenian farmers can get soft loans on an annual interest rate of 14%, 4% of which is subsidized by the government. Loans are extended in Armenian drams, the average loan amount is 625,000 drams.

“It is very difficult for farmers to pay the 10% specified by the government every year, especially in the first two years, as it takes about five years to get income from the cultivated land. Hence, farmers are forced to take out new loans and get into debts,” Sedrakyan said.

Sedrakyan stressed that the government should not only reduce the interest rates, but also increase the repayment period for agricultural loans from the current two to four or five years.

A farmer from Sisavan village of Ararat region Sos Harutiunyan, in his turn, said that the size of the loans extended is not sufficient either.

“The current maximum size of a loan is 1 million drams, whereas it is too littler for a farmer. For achieving positive results a minimum of 2-2.5 million is needed,” he said.

Armenian minister of finance Vache Gabrielyan said in October 2012 that the government found it not expedient to lower rates of interest on agricultural loans.–0—

spot_img

POPULAR

Insurance market of Armenia is in embryonic state

Insurance market of Armenia is in embryonic state

Ranking of Armenia’s most profitable banks in 2024

ARKA news agency has released a ranking of the most profitable commercial banks in Armenia in 2024.

Euro exchange rate down 1 point, while US dollar and ruble up

The average market exchange rate of the U.S. dollar to the Armenian dram on April 25, 2025, rose by 0.77 points compared to April 23 and amounted to AMD 390.33.

Arka news agency’s ranking of most profitable Armenian banks in 2019

In 2019, Armenia-based commercial banks earned a total of 78.8 billion drams in net profit, up from 56.4 billion drams they had earned in 2018, according to ARKA news agency's ranking of the most profitable commercial banks in the fourth quarter of 2019

LATEST NEWS

spot_imgspot_imgspot_img