YEREVAN, OCTOBER 24, ARMENPRESS. The volumes of acquisition reserves of foreign currency bought by Armenia’s Central Bank have reached 487,7 million dollars, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the Cabinet meeting.

“This is a very important indicator, because we were expecting, assuming, that at the end of the tourism season this trend will drop, but we are getting signs that tourism season in Armenia can be 12 months a year,” the prime minister said.

He asked cenbank chief Artur Javadyan to elaborate whether or not there is a problem that so much foreign currency has appeared in the country. Javadyan confirmed that the numbers are unprecedented. “Even in 2004-2006 when we had an abrupt strengthening of national currency we didn’t buy this much foreign currency. This speaks about the fact that we do not have outflow of foreign currency – as our opponents claim – but on the contrary we have inflow. We have a double effect here, on one hand we are fighting against dollarization, on the other hand we are injecting monetary resources into the economy. In this context I am sure that this year we will have an unprecedented reserve volume,” Javadyan said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan