YEREVAN, MARCH 10, NOYAN TAPAN. A sudden shift to a floating exchange rate policy was a correct and objective approach, otherwise the Armenian economy would have suffered considerable losses, while the negative impact of the global financial crisis on the country's financial market had already been seen. The RA deputy minister of finance Vardan Aramian expressed this opinion at the March 9 debate. The member of the parliamentary "ARF" faction Artsvik Minasian said that all the objective conditions for the dram's depreciation had already been created, but the question is how it should have been done: gradually or suddenly? In his words, a stage-by-stage shift would be a stricter one, but no calculations on it are presented to the public. "So the public has some concerns, negative expectations, tension," A. Minasian noted. He pointed out that the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) should publish the list of the entities who benefited from the situation and increased their wealth by 30% during 2-3 days. Doctor of Economics, Professor Tatul Manaserian considered wasting at least 700 dollars of the state budget for maintaining the dram's exchange rate as unacceptable. In his opinion, the depreciation of the dram should have been done gradually. According to him, in case of a gradual shift, the state would have been able not to affect negatively the purchasing capacity of the population, especially as the gas, water and power prices will rise starting from April 1. He said that in these conditions the state should raise the minimum wage to 30-40 thousand drams. In his words, the whole government is responsible for this situation. He said that the business circle puts a serious pressure on the government, preventing the executive branch from acting freely in the existing situation. "As a proof, I would like to note that last week the government withdrew from the National Assembly the bill that proposed increasing the customs duty of imported goods by 15%," T. Manaserian said.

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