{"id":251397,"date":"2024-03-13T14:49:28","date_gmt":"2024-03-13T14:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/2024\/03\/13\/251397\/"},"modified":"2024-03-13T14:49:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T14:49:28","slug":"central-bank-of-armenia-cautious-in-lowering-refinancing-rate-says-head-of-freedom-broker-armenia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/2024\/03\/13\/251397\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Bank of Armenia cautious in lowering refinancing rate, says head of Freedom Broker Armenia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>YEREVAN, March 13. \/ARKA\/. <\/strong>Against the backdrop of the latest deflationary quarter and weak single-digit inflation figures earlier, such rate cuts look very cautious, Freedom Broker Armenia CEO Hovak Hovakimyan told ARKA news agency when asked to comment on the Central Bank&#8217;s decision to lower the refinancing rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On March 12, the Central Bank Board lowered the refinancing rate by 0.25 percentage points, setting it at 8.5%. It was the seventh consecutive rate cut since last June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Hovakimyan, there are reasons to believe that in the absence of a developed centralized platform for currency trading and short interest rates, the Central Bank of Armenia is very limited in its regulatory and stability tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We still believe that interest rates in the country are high and the exchange rate of the dram is expensive. With a lower exchange rate of dram, inflation may accelerate due to the high share of imports, nevertheless, the growth rate of imports may decrease, while exports, on the contrary, may increase,&#8221; Hovakimyan noted.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this regard, he pointed out that in fact the current high exchange rate of the dram stimulates the growth of imports and restricts exporters, which is a classic example of the &#8220;Dutch disease&#8221;.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Certain concerns of the Central Bank may arise in connection with a possible change in the foreign policy and economic vectors of the government. This may cause turbulence both in the economy and in the exchange rate dynamics,&#8221; said the head of Freedom Broker Armenia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The state budget for 2024 envisages inflation at the level of 4% (\u00b11.5%). According to the National Statistical Committee, deflation of 1.7% was recorded in Armenia&#8217;s consumer market in February this year compared to February last year, while prices decreased by 0.7% compared to January. -0-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Against the backdrop of the latest deflationary quarter and weak single-digit inflation figures earlier, such rate cuts look very cautious, Freedom Broker Armenia CEO Hovak Hovakimyan told ARKA news agency when asked to comment on the Central Bank&#8217;s decision to lower the refinancing rate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":205964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","tstyn_error":""},"categories":[12139,9216],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-251397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy-en","8":"category-news"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}