Economist: Strategic goods in EAEU market must be purchased by ruble

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 11, ARMENPRESS. Economist Ashot Tavadyan is in favor of making trade of goods between the EAEU countries by national currency. In his opinion, it must be insisted upon purchasing strategic goods like gas in the EAEU market by ruble.

“We will benefit from that as we will not have to double convert currency, we receive a transfer of 1.5 billion by Russian ruble and pay 400 million for gas by USD. The transfers will directly serve for payments. Secondly, we will be safe in terms of national currency exchange rate fluctuations and it will not result in price increase of energy carriers. Thirdly, the pressure against the Russian ruble will decrease. It must also be emphasized that the latter is one of EAEU contract requirements favorable for us arising from article 64,” “Armenpress” reports, Doctor of Economics Ashot Tavadyan said.

According to him, Armenia’s import is 3 times more that the export, as a result the Central bank of Armenia tries to maintain dram exchange rate. Otherwise, the prices of imported goods will increase and it will lead to inflation. On the other hand, the difference between refinancing rate and inflation of the Central bank of Armenia is the biggest among the EAEU countries.

“If we have 3.2 inflation and refinancing rate of 10.25%, than the Russian Federation refinancing rate is 11% in case of 12.4% inflation. It means we conduct expensive monetary policy, and the process of investments is slow in our economy, it is difficult to organize the development of the country in such conditions, ” Tavadyan said.

According to 2015 January-September data, export reduced by 0.9% (1 billion, 095.6 million USD), the import reduced by 26.6% (2 billion 361.7 million USD).