Yerevan, May 15, Noyan Tapan. Armenia’s Central Bank Council reduced the refinancing interest rate by 0.25 percentage point to 7.25 per cent. As the CB public relation department reported, the council of the central bank stated 3.2 per cent of price growth was recorded in April of 2009 against March, the price growth within 12 month reached 3.1 per cent. The Council of the CB stated that current inflationary developments are mainly relevant to the directions for the forecasted period. According to the CB PR department, since the second quarter of 2009 the inflation pace, as expected, began to accelerate. However, the inflation pace will not surpass the upper target within forecasted period. Concurrently, further inflation tendency will be conditioned by indirect impact of the rate increase for main utility services within this April. In addition to it, the inflation growth will be affected by continuing process of price adjustment for imported goods, which started due to dram devaluation in the beginning of this March. GDP rate, lower than balanced level for the forecasted period, and outer deflation environment soften the influence of the mentioned factors on the regular level of prices.

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