Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan gave an interview to Mir TV and made announcements about the possibility of making the Russian ruble currency used in the territories of all CIS countries. Indeed yesterday he tried to explain his interview and the ideas expressed in it, but he failed to explain and gave reasons to ask more questions. The PM says that Armenia is interested in making the financial transactions between Russia and Armenia in the national currencies but not dollar or euro because it results in diversification of foreign currency risks and cuts down the transaction expenses. We wander whether the rumor that Armenia may join the Russian ruble zone is realistic. In answer to this question Tigran Sargsyan did not say whether it is realistic, not excluded or possible. He said that first of all we should figure out what it means to join the ruble zone. “If by the ruble zone we mean the countries which are using ruble in the transactions with Russia, then it is quite realistic. But if you mean uniting like the Euro zone countries did, it is soon to speak of such possibility,” said Tigran Sargsyan. In fact the prime minister does not exclude the possibility of quitting the national currency and jointing the Russian ruble zone and he says that it is soon yet. At the same time hardly it is possible that Armenia is initiating this step only for the purpose of paying the debts against the 500 million borrowing recently announced to be taken from Russia. It is clear that in the context of the “foreign games” played by the incumbent authorities in the recent period it is a message to the West threatening them to go under Russia’s umbrella fully. It is not by chance that this message was addressed by Tigran Sargsyan, who is known to be a pro-Western official. By the way, concerning the fact of making the ruble a currency for transactions he says that three years ago the Armenian Central Bank adopted a decision to use the ruble as a reserve currency. The former head of the Central Bank brought a number of reasons why they did it, but he did not say anything about the capacity of such reserve fund Armenia has collected. Furthermore, he did not say the most important thing: how much Armenia lost as a result of the Russian ruble devaluation against the US dollar (about 50%).
