YEREVAN, November 3. /ARKA/. The Central Bank of Armenia plans cuts in the system to raise wages in 2021, Central Bank Chairman Martin Galstyan said on Monday during parliamentary hearings on the draft government budget for 2021.

He said that the draft government budget for 2021 provides for the administrative expenses of the central bank in the amount of 7.5 billion drams, which is 2.3% or 235 million drams more than in 2020.

At the same time, he noted that despite the norms stipulated by the legislation so that the salary of employees of the central bank was higher than the average for commercial banks, today the salary of employees of the Central Bank is on average 25% lower than in the commercial sector.

“This situation leads to an outflow of professional staff from the state system. In the last two years alone, we have lost about 165 highly professional employees who have moved to the commercial sector,” Galstyan said.

According to him, in this regard, it was decided to reduce the number of employees of the central bank in the medium term. In particular, in 2021 it is planned to reduce 4% of employees and increase the salary fund by 4%.

As for the rest of the costs, according to him, it is planned to reduce transport costs by 12% for 2021, and communications costs by 1%. At the same time, economic expenses (including the purchase of protective equipment against coronavirus - 7 million drams) will increase by 6.8%. ($ 1 – AMD 493.6). -0-