YEREVAN, December 28. /ARKA/. The head of the Central Bank of Armenia Martin Galstyan disagreed with the claims that banks do not finance business much.
In an interview with Armenia’s Public Television he was asked to comment on the fact that compared to 2018, mortgage loans increased 4.3 times to AMD 800 billion, consumer loans by 60% to AMD 400 billion, but loans provided to such sectors as industry, agriculture, transportation, trade, communications, and services grew by only 320 billion drams, while lending to industry even decreased.
“Banks have seen growth not only in the mortgage loans, but also an increase in the number of construction companies. This is also one of the sectors of the economy, which is greatly promoted by the government’s income tax refunds scheme, which allows borrowers to use the income tax to pay interest on mortgage loans,” Galstyan said.
As for industry, several factors may play a role here, he said.
“According to my data, the growth of lending to the industry is not very significant, but we have an increase of AMD 70 billion compared to 2018. It should be remembered that significant changes occurred during the Covid period. Some companies have quite high income, which allows them to solve their problems, so they do not have to apply for loans,” Galstyan said, recalling the economic growth of 12.6% last year.
He noted that with the development of the capital market, companies will have the opportunity to acquire the funds needed for investments. -0-
