YEREVAN. – The profitability of Armenia’s commercial banks is 10-11 percent, in contrast to certain business sectors where profitability is much higher, Armenian Central Bank’s Chairman Arthur Javadyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

As per Javadyan, the current bank assets have reached 54 percent of the GDP, in the case when this was 28 percent, in 2008. Also in the same time period, the credit-GDP ratio increased from 16 percent to 28 percent.  

In addition, the industry and business credits sharply increased in 2011, whereas the consumer credit growth rate lags behind that of business credit.

“If our citizens keep their bank deposits in Armenian currency, our banks’ capabilities to provide [Armenian] dram credits would grow. At present, 30 percent of the deposits is kept in Armenian currency, and 70 percent is in foreign currency,” Arthur Javadyan noted.