YEREVAN, July 8. /ARKA/. The Armenian capital market is witnessing an interesting trend of increased foreign investments, said Armen Kotoyan, a member of the Central Bank of Armenia's Council, in an interview with CivilNet.
According to him, in the first five months of this year, investments by non-residents in dram bonds nearly doubled compared to the same period last year, reaching 10%.
Kotoyan also pointed out the decrease in the risk premium in Armenia.
“A very important trend that we must note is the decrease in the risk premium for the Republic of Armenia. It should be noted with satisfaction that the behavior of the risk premium in the Armenian financial market has started to differ to some extent from the behavior of the same indicator in other developing economies,” he noted.
According to Kotoyan, while Armenia used to follow the trajectory of developing markets, recently the behavior of the risk premium has become closer to that of developed countries.
“Some shock effects, for example, geopolitical negative charges manifested in the Middle East, security issues, did not affect the level of the risk premium in our case as they did in several other countries in the region. This means that Armenia is assessed somewhat differently, and this creates an important prerequisite for future investments and economic growth,” Kotoyan said.
Speaking about economic diversification, he noted that it is preferable to have a more diversified economy with proportional development of various sectors.
“However, we are dealing with the realities that exist. In construction, high growth rates are maintained. This is one of the most important stimuli for economic activity,” Kotoyan said.
He added that in the tourism services sector, there is significant growth in external demand exceeding 20%, there is great interest in financial services, and in the IT sector, there is certain export activity. “Armenia is also attractive today in terms of portfolio investments,” said the Central Bank Council member.
