YEREVAN, March 23. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Minister of Economic Development and Investments Suren Karayan received today an IMF team led by Damien Shiels, a Global Product Specialist for the services sector in the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global Practice (FCI) of the World Bank Group for Europe and Central Asia.

The press service of the ministry quoted minister Karayan as saying that Armenia has gained a broad experience and effective cooperation with the International Financial Corporation (IFC) in the improvement of investment environment and tourism industry.

He said in the context of reforms, implemented in Armenia, these areas are the most important. During the meeting, a new program for investment environment reforms, implemented by IFC in Armenia, was discussed.

The parties touched on the areas of advisory cooperation, attraction of foreign investments, measures to improve the business climate and opportunities to stimulate exports. Reforms in the sphere of truism were discussed with the Armenian Tourism Development Foundation.

Armenia became an IFC member in 1995. Since then, IFC has provided over $480 million, including nearly $118 million mobilized from other lenders, to finance 49 projects across a range of sectors, including financial markets, manufacturing, agribusiness, services, and mining.

In addition, IFC has also supported trade transactions worth more than $130 million through its trade finance program, and implemented advisory projects focused on private sector development. -0-