Yerevan /Mediamax/. Central Bank of Armenia chose 8 commercial banks, due to which the loan of the World Bank at the volume of $50mln will be placed for development of small and medium enterprise.

Mediamax reports that the Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia Vache Gabrielyan stated today that the following banks are selected:

“Araratbank”, “Armeconombank”, “Ardshininvestbank”, “ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank”, “VTB Bank Armenia”, “HSBC Bank Armenia”, “ProCredit Bank” and “Converse Bank”.

The loan is provided for the term of 26.5 years with 5 years’ period of grace. Vache Gabrielyan noted that Armenian CB will provide the means to banks with 8-9% annual interest rate, and the interest ate of the credits for SME will be established by banks, basing on assessment of risks of the presented programs. The means will be provided in AMD, however, in a number of cases, issue of credits in foreign currency is possible.

All partner banks will be allocated equal sums by the CB, however if this or that bank in short periods places the means, the sum may be increased.

According to Vache Gabrielyan, this is not the first program of the Central Bank, directed to developing SME. So, within the framework of the German-Armenian Fund, CB has already placed 10bln AMD, and by the end of the year, provision of 15bln AMD more is planned for.