YEREVAN, October 21. /ARKA/. An Armenian delegation made up of Armenian Vice Premier Mher Grigoryan, Central Bank Chairman Arthur Javadyan, Chief of the Central Bank's Financial System Development Division Andranik Grigoryan and Head of Dilijan Education and Research Center Armen Nurbekyan, has had a number of meetings in Washington on the sidelines of the annual session of the governing boards of the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In particular, the Armenian delegation met with International Monetary Fund's Dutch-Belgian Subgroup Executive Director Anthony De Lannoy and Deputy Executive Director Richard Doornbosch on Friday.
The parties discussed Armenia's latest macroeconomic indicators and the steps the central bank is taking to ensure stability to the country's financial system.

The IMF's latest "Global Manufacturing Downturn, Rising Trade Barriers' report, which was issued on October 17, predicts that Armenia's economy will grow this year by 6% and will drop to 4.8% in 2020. It says inflation in Armenia in 2019 is expected at 1.7%, and at 2.5% in 2020. In its previous report the IMF predicted that Armenia's GDP in 2019 would grow by 4.6%, and inflation by 2.1%.

The Armenian delegation was received also by Jihad Azour, the Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund, who expressed satisfaction over his recent visit to Armenia. Azour and Javadyan decided to hold a joint scientific conference in the Education and Research Center in Dilijan.

On May 2019, the IMF approved a 36-month Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) for Armenia amounting to about US$248.2 million. -0---