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At May 18 sitting of the RA NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs, Martin Galstyan answered the questions of the Committee members after presenting the annual report related to the activity of the Central Bank.

The Committee Chair Arkadi Khachatryan noted that serious challenges occurred especially for the Central Bank (CB) last year. Highlighting the public confidence towards the CB, he has been interested in whether the measures taken until this moment are enough to respond to inflation expectations and neutralize the risks. Martin Galstyan answered: “This year, the inflation rate may be higher than the target of the CB, but the policy of the CB let us to take a more discretionary approach. According to our estimate, even if the target is exceeded this year, we will have an inflation next year which will correspond to our purpose”.

Speaking about the existing high credit burden, he stated that the banks showed prudent and reasonable policy. In many cases, the banks reviewed the conditions and tried to solve the occurred problems by taking individual approaches.

Martin Galstyan touched upon the issues of credit services, the certain increase in unemployment and the creation of additional new jobs.