There weren’t any serious economical developments last week. There was no change in the currercy exchange rates for a while, and then the downfall continued. The National Assembly was concerned about that some MPs even proposed to organize discussions dedicated to that problem and call the president of the Central Bank to the parliament to give a report about the situation. The society was keeping silence again since that situation was not something new for them. It does not matter to them whether there are more or less parliamentary discussions, whether some of the MPs may make populist speeches and whether the head of the Central Bank may say that he is advocating the interests of the group of citizens that have their incomes in the national currency or not. It is not excluded that some of the MPs that get super-profit from importing products to Armenia may say that they feel pity about that fact. Again, no one would care about who those persons are that are getting super-profit and whose interests are advocated by the CB. According to the CB information, the capacity of foreign transfers to Armenia will cover $1,3 billion this year. Specialists say that the real capacity of the received transfers is more by 20%. It is said that at least 20% of the received transfers are circulated in banks. By making a simple calculation we will see that our country receives $120 million per month. According to the official information and explanations, this is the reason why there are extra capacities of the national currency in the domestic market and thus it makes its price go down. (It is said that the money that Armenians receive is exchanged in a very short period upon receiving it). Based on the official explanations, we may assume that the CB does not want to advocate their interests. According to the official information, the monthly income median of citizens this month covers 1210 million dram. The half of this sum is provided by foreign transfers. On the basis of what we said above, we may assume that the CB does not advocate the interests of half of the group of those people. Otherwise, we may say that the CB advocates the interests of the other part of the group of those citizens, i.e. those people that have their income in the national currency but not in foreign currencies. These citizens are socially vulnerable. Of course this group of citizens includes 500.000 citizens, which receive pension and other social aid. The median pension in Armenia is 10.000 dram. I may say that for these citizens, which have such a low income, it is the same whether the CB will protect their interests or not. It doesn’t make a difference for them because their monthly income is about $20-30. It is the same, for that money they don’t buy dollar, but they buy food. As for the prices for food, even the official sources of information say that the prices for food have increased. Accordingly, we may assume that pensioners are not the group of citizens, whose interests are advocated by the CB, or, in other words, the policy of the CB is not aimed towards this group of citizens.
Notwithstanding, we know that most of the organizations and companies in Armenia don’t pay salaries in AMD. In such companies foreign owners don’t make their calculations in their business plan on the basis of AMD. When hiring Armenians, in fact, they fix their salaries in foreign currency, but not in AMD. There was a time when businesses followed the law and thus had a point in their contracts with their employees, where they fixed the salary sum as “a sum in dram equivalent to the fixed sum of the salary”. Now it is prohibited, and the people keeping that sum in their minds but still think about paying the sum they have in another currency. In such companies at least once a year the wages are reduced. If we take into account the fact, that citizens working in the field of water supply, energy production and some other businesses, we may assume that the CB does not advocate their interests either. It is hard to find out the percentage of that group of citizens in the society. Accordingly, it is also hard to figure out whose interests the CB is advocating (which part or percentage of the population).
I may be wrong to look for a group of citizens that receive big capacities of income in the national currency. It is very hard to find them since there are few similar companies that pay that much money. You can’t say that teachers getting 40-50.000 a month may benefit. Instead of that, we may say that there is a group of citizens that benefit from that change: that group is the staff of the CB, where the average salary is 260.000 dram. Besides them, governmental officers may also benefit since they get high salaries as well (in AMD). If you can remember another group of citizens that receive high salaries in the national currency, I promise to publish that information and the lists in papers. I will apologize and publish their names one by one. I don’t think that the space I have in this paper may be enough for listing all their names.