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SLAMMING THE AUTHORITIES

Politics


“This was the first wave of the crisis and worse is yet to come,” said today at the “Hayeli” club former head of the Central Bank of Armenia Bagrat Asatryan in a press conference with member of the Prosperous Armenia parliamentary faction Vardan Bostanjyan. Asatryan has two offers for the administration to improve the situation at hand. According to him, since the country must solve the issue of resistance, the administration must release its “friends” [political prisoners-ed.] to gain the trust of the people and then, it has to open its eyes and see the influence of the crisis on Armenia because, as he said, “October slammed the economic policies of the administration.”

Former CB head is frustrated with the 2009 state budget because it mentions nothing about the global economic crisis.

“The so-called crisis is a state of emergency and the administration must take measures. It had to change the ideology of the budget,” said Asatryan. Vardan Bostanjyan said the following: “This is our country and this is all we can do.”

Evaluating the work of the Central Bank, the former head of the bank marked that the bank’s steps are not enough to improve the situation. According to him, in the month of October alone, the Central Bank entered 100 million dollars in the market and besides that, they call the exchange centers and told them that they would be in trouble if the exchange rate went up from 310. Asatryan says that this is destroying the economy of Armenia.

This is against the principle of floating rates, which presupposes that the Central Bank must not interfere in the ups-and-downs of the exchange rates.

Vardan Bostanjyan can’t say whether he considers this policy correct or not, but he did say the following:

“In any case, I feel that there is a need for the ups-and-downs. The dollar, in essence, is nothing but a commodity. It is necessary to get the dollar out of circulation in order to regulate supply and demand.”