YEREVAN, February 3. /ARKA/. In 2019, foreign bank-issued cards were used in Armenia to make a total of 4.9 million transactions, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.
“This means that foreigners used their cards in our country 4.9 million times to pay for purchases and services in our stores, cafes, restaurants, hotels, and also made cash withdrawals from ATMs,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
According to the prime minister, this indicator, when compared with 2017, increased by 2.5 million transactions, and compared with 2018 by 48% or 1.6 million transactions.
The head of government noted that in terms of money, the transactions were worth 178 billion drams, which is 44% or 54 billion drams more than in 2017, and 28% or 38 billion drams more than in 2018.
Pashinyan said the number of transactions showed a greater growth than the cash volume and that may mean that foreign tourists used the services of small and medium-sized businesses more, since transactions with relatively smaller volumes are usually concluded with small businesses, including when paying for a taxi. ‘And this means that the economic ideology that we adopted works in real life, Pashinyan explained. ($1 – 478.76 drams). -0-
