YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Fitch Ratings makes quite positive predictions for Armenia. Armenia’s financial and economic system has been quite stable even in the conditions of political uncertainty, Erich Arispe – Director of the Sovereign Department at Fitch Ratings, said during a conference in Yerevan, reports Armenpress.

“Armenia’s financial and economic system has been quite stable even in the conditions of political uncertainty. Armenia’s endurance showed that the political transition in the country with various manifestations enabled for the structure to properly continue its activities. This transition was possible from institutional terms. And we can state that this transition was completed last Sunday through the snap parliamentary elections. We have quite positive predictions. We have already provided that positive assessment and reaffirmed recently on November 30 that the prospect for Armenia remains positive”, Erich Arispe said.

He said Armenia’s power is in structural factors. Armenia not only has high GDP per capita, but also stable and higher structural endurance if we assess by the World Bank methodology. And the Fitch Ratings tried to observe that institutional power, as well as to see how some challenges and political shocks were absorbed by the system. “Compared to the comparable states, in the case of most of the loans for Armenia we see that they have been lower than compared to late 2017. This also relates to creditworthiness. There is also a major foreign funding, as well as loan resources. The fiscal strategy has already started giving numbers in 2018. The deficit in 2017 was much more than budgeted. We think that it is important to continue the consolidation, there is a strategy for that”, he said.

The official said it is necessary to reduce the debt volumes with foreign currencies in the overall state debt. He also presented their expectations after the December 9 snap parliamentary elections. He highlighted the fact that after these major changes the macroeconomic and financial stability has been maintained in Armenia. “This is a key factor as it shows that the authorities have ensured credibility to the banking and financial system. And this ensured the economic stability”, Erich Arispe noted.

The Fitch Ratings official said how they will change their predictions depends on the government’s political agenda, the sequence of changes. He said they expect that Armenia will be able to smoothly maintain the stability of inflation targets in 2019-2020.

Reported by Anna Grigoryan

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan