President Armen Sarkissian floated the idea of turning Armenia into a “financial hub” when he met with the International Monetary Fund’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, in Kazakhstan on Thursday.
Sarkissian and Lagarde held talks in the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan on the sidelines of an international economic forum organized by the Central Asian country’s government.
“The parties exchanged views on the possibilities for broadening the existing cooperation and underscored that there is a great potential to do it,” read a statement released by the Armenian presidential press service.
“Noting that our country has a mature banking and financial systems, President Sarkissian spoke of the concept to make Armenia a financial hub and opportunities to achieve it,” it said. “It will allow to make our country not only more attractive but also to offer high-quality and more efficient services.”
The statement did not elaborate on that concept. It quoted Sarkissian as praising Armenia’s ties with the IMF, one of its leading foreign creditors.
Earlier this year, the IMF moved to allocate a fresh $250 million loan to Armenia, praising the Armenian government’s macroeconomic policies and “ambitious” reform agenda. An IMF mission indicated at the end of a two-week visit to Yerevan that the Washington-based fund’s Executive Board will likely approve the allocation in May.
The mission chief, Hossein Samiei said that the “precautionary stand-by arrangement” would be disbursed in several installments over the next three years. It is designed to “support the new government’s reform plans and strengthen resilience against external shocks,” he said.
The IMF’s most recent lending program for Armenia, worth roughly $115 million, was launched in 2014 and completed in 2017.
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