Yerevan, November 23 /Mediamax/. “The Armenian authorities strictly oppose” to our striving for closing the unprofitable branches of the “VTB-Armenia Bank”, the Vice President of the Russian VTB Bank Vasili Titov stated.

Mediamax reports that Vasili Titov said this in an interview to the Ukrainian “Contracts” newspaper.

“In Armenia we bought a large bank with a net of 100 branches, some of them are very unprofitable, and one must just liquidate them. However, the local authorities very much oppose to that. In many of Armenian villages out branches are almost the only ones, making the banking services available for the population. Thus, we cannot push our way through, we should take into account not only our interests, but also the opinion of the authorities”, the Vice President of VTB stated.

Mediamax recalls that the President of the “Mika Limited” Company Mikhail Bagdasarov, who still owns the 30% share of the “VTB-Armenia Bank”, stated on November 7 that the decision to sell the shares was reasoned by the disagreement with the policy of the leadership of the “VTB-Armenia Bank”. In particular, Bagdasarov was noting, the leadership of the bank intends to close 40 branches in regions of Armenia, which is unacceptable for him.