YEREVAN, December 29. /ARKA/. Speaking at a reception on Thursday organized by the Central Bank of Armenia PM Pashinyan said since 2018, the government's policy has been to ensure the institutional independence of the regulator.

He said the banking system operates in an environment without political pressure. 'And this is also something that I think is good, it should be just like that, but on the other hand,

'I think it should also be recorded, because these nuances that are not noticed, are not recorded, they provide a background for the stability of macroeconomic, financial markets. And when we combine all this with the environment of high economic growth, we see that our banking system also has impressive indicators, in particular, as of November 2023, the total deposit portfolio of the banking system of Armenia registered a record-high indicator of 5 trillion 619 billion 277 million AMD. It is very important that the growth is sustainable and continuous. This indicator exceeds the October indicator of this year by almost 84 billion AMD, 1.51 percent, and exceeds the indicator of the same period of 2022 by 13.46 percent, and compared to 2018, the deposit portfolio has almost doubled, the growth is over 95 percent.'

Pashinyan said the total credit portfolio of the  banking system has also registered a record-high indicator: as of November, 5 trillion 365 billion 604 million AMD, which is again 2.2 percent higher than the October index, 21.3 percent higher than the November index of last year, and compared to November 2018, more than 57 percent. I think it is important to record that the total deposit portfolio exceeds the total credit portfolio by 253 billion AMD, which is a very important guarantee of the stability of the banking system.

Pashinyan stressed that ss of November 30 of this year, the number of customers of the banking system was 4 million 442 thousand 950 people, which increased by 19.3 percent compared to 2022, and 65.7 percent compared to 2018. As of September 30, the total number of customer accounts of the banking system was 8 million 995 thousand 422, which in is 22 percent more than 2022, and 78 percent more than 2018.

'These indicators are impressive and along with the decisions on capital increase that the Central Bank President mentioned, the opportunities for stability of our banking system has increased to a certain extent, which is a very important circumstance for increasing the potential of economic growth. The fact that the deposit portfolio is much larger than the loan portfolio also gives hope that the banking system still has some potential to contribute to at least 7 percent economic growth next year. Here, our business sector, the real sector, should focus on the quality of the programs to also generate interest in the banking system.'

Currently, there are 18 banks in Armenia. Their profit in  the first 9 months of 2023 amounted to 214.96 billion drams, increasing by 10.97% compared to the same period last year.

Total assets of the banks amounted to 8.8 trillion drams,4.55% growth compared to the beginning of the year.

The banks' liabilities reached AMD 7.3 trillion, 2.9% growth against the beginning of the year, their total capital  amounted to AMD 1.5 trillion, having increased by 13.48% since the beginning of the year. ($1 - AMD 405.15) -0-