Armenian Financial Market: Development, Present Conditions and Perspective

The goal of this article is to show how the financial market of Armenia is arranged at the moment with short descriptions of the historical path of its development, explaining how past difficulties were solved and what problems still need to be addressed. The country’s banking system demonstrates high capital adequacy and liquidity ratios, while the infrastructure of organized market for trading in financial assets meets the best world standards. However, the volume of bank loans to the economy still does not reach 50 % of GDP; the capitalization of the stock market and the turnover of corporate bonds show the modest market capacity. Enhance of the securities market, primarily corporate bonds market would facilitate the increase in contribution of the financial market to the national economic development of Armenia. Joint efforts of the authorities and the market have done much for the development of the trade and depository block, improvement of the regulatory framework, enlargement of the investors community. In the final part of the article the authors present their considerations on the essential components of a further work on the development of the Armenian stock market.