YEREVAN. – The Central Bank of Armenia on Tuesday issued a report on the country’s foreign reserves, Haykakan Zhamanak daily reported.

“According to which, the country’s gross foreign reserves amounted to 1 billion 491 million [US] dollars, as of April 1 this year.

“This is ‘worthy’ news at first sight. [But] the problem is that our reserves have continuously and sharply reduced from 2 billion dollars to 1 billion 260 million dollars during the past year, whereas they instantly increased by 230 million dollars last month.

“However, it appears that the 300 million dollars from the 500 million-dollar loan, which was placed through Eurobonds several weeks ago, was used for supplementing the foreign reserves. And it turns out that by supplementing by 300 million dollars, the foreign reserves [of Armenia] have increased by a mere 230 million dollars.

“Simple arithmetic shows that another 70 million dollars were spent from our foreign reserves solely in one month. If our foreign reserves are continued to be spent at this rate, it will take [only] a few months for their complete depletion,” Haykakan Zhamanak wrote.