“Devaluation of national currency is a price to pay for liberalization,” Armenian National Congress Representative, CBA ex-Chairman Bagrat Asatryan said on Thursday.
He stressed that dram exchange rate control policy required significant funding and was advantageous to many importers. According to official data, AMD400 million was all that remained from AMD11,605 million state budget by the end of January.
According to Asatryan’s forecasts the year 2009 will be a hard one: public service tariffs raise, reduction of transfers, unemployment will create a serious situation in Armenia. If no system changes are introduced, the consequences of crisis will be strongly felt in spring 2010.
