YEREVAN. - Armenia will lodge an application for a new loan program from the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development (EFSD).  

Deputy Minister of Finance Atom Janjughazyan, who is also Armenia’s Chief Treasurer, told the aforementioned to Armenian News – NEWS.am correspondent.

“The supposed volume of the loan is 25 mln, but the application is in an early stage of development. It won’t be an application for a general budgetary support, but a program for one of the sectors of economy,” Janjughazyan said.

He also noted that Armenia’s quota in EFSD (former EurAsEC fund) is 1.1 bln AMD, or 13 percent of the overall volume of the fund ($8.5 bln currently).

In the framework of this quota, three programs in an overall amount of $490 mln have been confirmed for Armenia: $300 mln for budgetary assistance (for 2015-17, $100 mln per tranche), $150 mln for the construction of the southern section of North-South trans-Armenian motorway (from the Iranian border to Kajaran town), as well as $40 mln for the repair of the republic’s irrigations systems.

The new loan, like the previous ones, will be attracted on concessional terms, with a grant element of not less than 30 percent (index of the loan concession level on the basis of its general conditions) – a criteria, which Armenia uses to orientate with other creditors.  

To the question on whether the Fund can shift to loaning in Russian ruble or other national currencies of participating countries (5 republics of EEU and Tajikistan), the Deputy Minister explained that this is quite a difficult task. Since the Fund has been formulated in dollars, a question will arise on how to convert them into national currencies so that the participants’ pro rata contributions do not suffer.

“I’m not yet informed about any discussion on this topic,” Janjughazyan stated.