YEREVAN (Armenpress)–Tigran Sargissian–newly-elected second chairman of the Armenian Central Bank–is known to people as the 1990-95 Supreme Council committee for financial loan budget issues chief. Starting in 1995–Sargissian was the Armenian Association of Banks chairman. Not considering himself to be a politician–Sargissian says the cannot accept his appointment as a political step for he has never belonged to a same political movement or structure with Robert Kocharian. The more so–he has been out of policy in general during the last years and was engaged in professional affairs only.
The following is an excerpts from Sargissian’s interview with Armenpress: Q: You used to state while being an AAB chairman that a banking system development stance was never worked out in Armenia. What changes are to be made in the Central Bank’s policy from the view-point of banking system’s development? Tigram Sargssian: I should first of all point out that the Central Bank agreed with my statemen’s. We currently have a department at the bank going with long-term programs’ work out. By the way–this issue is not a matter of the bank only but is a interdepartmental one to be settled jointly with the government and with participation of the National Assembly.
A long-term banking system development program should be worked out. I think that in the issue of how we imagine our banking system and what functions it is to fulfill we must be mostly ambitious and pretend to becoming leaders in our region. We presently have preferences and we should not lose them. We should aim at strengthening and developing our positions. At the same time–I am against any revolutionary changes. Q: Do you think banks should be universal or narrow-specialized? T.S.: According to our acting Constitution–all Armenian banks are universal. Nevertheless–the fact is we have banks in the republic which have found fields of specialization for themselves.