Zhoghovurd newspaper of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes as follows, in particular: In 2021, former MP Armen Yeghiazaryan, referring to World Bank [(WB)] data, had made a controversial statement, claiming that about 211 million US dollars were transferred from Azerbaijan to Armenia in 2018.

For years, this figure has been circulating in the [Armenian] public sphere, raising numerous questions, but no [Armenian] state structure had provided a clear explanation so far. Zhoghovurd daily, taking into account the public importance of the topic, first had turned to Andranik Simonyan, Director of the RA National Security Service [(NSS)], to find out whether the NSS had studied this information and whether there were data on such an amount of financial flows from Azerbaijan to Armenia.

The response received from the NSS was quite noteworthy. The department had stated that: “During the exercise of its powers vested in it by law, it has not received data on the transfer of 211 million US dollars from the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Republic of Armenia.” At the same time, the NSS had suggested petitioning to the RA Central Bank [(CB)] to obtain the necessary information.

After that, the Zhoghovurd daily sent a request with similar content to the Central Bank, asking [it] to clarify whether there are data on the 211 million dollars transferred from Azerbaijan to Armenia in 2018, and to what extent these figures correspond to reality, what their purpose is, by whom they were made, etc.

Has the RA Central Bank conducted any analysis related to the assessment of possible security, financial or economic risks of these data, and if not, on what grounds? The CB’s response, in fact, completely changes the perception of the story that has been discussed for years. The Central Bank first noted that the data published by the World Bank “are only expert assessments based on data on migrants.”

According to the CB’s clarification, the calculations are based not on actual remittances, but on migration statistics. “In particular, according to WB data, there are 87 thousand migrants who have come from Azerbaijan in Armenia, and in Azerbaijan—146 thousand migrants who have gone from Armenia.

Let us note that the latter are relocated, not individuals receiving and/or making remittances,” the CB informed. Moreover, the Central Bank explains that the World Bank methodology calculates the assumed income and expenses of migrants, after which a general assessment is made of the amount of funds that could have been transferred to their countries of origin.

“Based on the number of migrants and estimates of income and expenses, WB experts conclude that all migrants make remittances to their home countries,” the CB response notes. However, the most important observation is perhaps the following: “These transfers are not actually made money transfers, but are calculated based on the number of people relocated from RA to Azerbaijan and from Azerbaijan to RA.”

That is, it is not about real transactions recorded through the banking system or other financial channels, but exclusively about a statistical model used by the international organization. Moreover, the Central Bank has clearly recorded: “According to the official RA statistics, no money transfers are conducted between RA and Azerbaijani entities.”

In fact, it becomes clear from the responses of the two [Armenian] state structures that the figure of $211 million indicator, which has been the subject of discussions for years, is not official data on real transfers.

The NSS does not have such information, and the CB states that it is about a model estimate of the World Bank, which was calculated based on migration data and does not reflect actually made money transfers.

Moreover, the CB informed also that in the same sources for 2022, 0 is written against the same data. And after 2018, the data were processed, and in 2022, as already noted, such data are not available. As for data after 2022, no such publications were made after that year.