YEREVAN, April 3. /ARKA/. Armenak Darbinyan,a member of the board of the Central Bank of Armenia, thinks introduction of a single currency in the Eurasian Economic Union space is not feasible so far.

He told journalists today that a single currency should be adopted at the most mature stage of integration, which is still not reached.

“And to reach it is necessary ensure a full-scale operation of the Customs Union, common market, economic union, including labor markets, capital and services, and it is also necessary to ensure full integration of financial markets,” he said.

Pointing out the European Union, Darbinyan said that it faces problems since before adoption of a single currency it didn’t complete harmonization of its tax and budgetary policy.
He is convinced that the Eurasian Economic Union countries should pass a long road to come close to a single currency.

“It is still difficult to indicate particular terms, since integration is a time-consuming process. Now the union consists of four member countries, and the fifth country may join it soon, what makes harmonization more complicated, since the more countries the longer processes,” he said.
The banker also stressed that the union member countries should reach an appropriate level in their development to have diversified economies, which will be able to support this single currency.

On March 20, Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with his Belarusian and Kazakh counterparts Alexander Lukashenko and Nursultan Nazabayev, said time has come to embark on negotiation over creation of a monetary unit.
Alexey Likhachev, first Russian deputy economic development minister, said the monetary unit may be formed gradually, and not all the members of the Eurasian Economic Union may be included in it initially. -----0-----