YEREVAN. - The demand for the bond issue in Armenia will not reduce in 2016, the executive director of Renesa investment company, Vaghinak Saroyan, told Armenian News – NEWS.am, responding to the question on the outburst of corporate bond circulation in Armenia in 2015.

According to the data of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA), in 2015 the circulation of the securities of the transactions made through the Central depository system grew 4.2 times, reaching 1 trillion 182.2 billion AMD (approx. 2.47 bln). This system registers not only corporate bond transactions, but also over-the-counter (OTC) transactions on sovereign Eurobonds of Armenia.

“As a market-maker, I can say that there has been a significant growth in corporate obligations, which is continuing in 2016.  I can judge about this by the workload of my colleagues,” Saroyan said.

In his words, the demand for the bonds is also noticeable among natural persons and financial organizations (the former prefer bonds in foreign currency, while the latter accept also in a local currency in order to balance their assets). As to the pension funds, which should turn into a significant buyer in prospect (together with the growth of pension accumulations), they are still getting accustomed to the strict control of the CBA.  As managers of pension means, especially strict demands are presented to them.

“Besides, they should observe the norms of diversifying their portfolio. This means that they cannot buy too many of those same securities. They need time to finally get aligned with these requirements,” Saroyan noted.