Friday, April 3 2015 17:34
Suleymanov: Integration of financial markets within EEU is at initial stage
ArmInfo. The process of integration of the financial markets within the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is at the initial stage, Timur Suleymanov, Minister of Economy and Financial Policy of the Eurasian Economic Commission, said at today's press conference at the Central Bank of Armenia. He said that the agenda of the April 3 discussions with the CBA includes 12 items.
"We are going to discuss the broker-dealer pilot project, which implies the following: we choose the less sensitive and the less regulated segments of the financial sector and we ensure freedom and unity of the financial market in these dimensions", he said.
"In addition, we will discuss an agreement on activities on the financial markets. First of all, the discussion will cover the issue of harmonization of our legislations in order to have similar ways and mechanisms of regulation. The sides still have some discrepancies but we hope we will be able to remove them", said Suleymanov.
He added that the discussions will also cover the project on creation of a common motor liability insurance product. "As you know, we have quite big problems, which may concern Armenian carriers to a smaller extent due to the lack of a common border, but they are important on the Kazakhstan-Russia border, because the carriers have to buy insurance polices several times a day (for a month, two months or a short-term policy), which comes at a high cost. To settle that problem, one needs to create a single insurance product", he said.
Suleymanov pointed out that today the working group will present the results of the measures on currency regulation and currency control. "All the EEU member states are moving towards liberalization of currency regimes, nevertheless, the speed and the approaches may differ to a small extent. Today we will be informed of the current barriers when a country's citizens open accounts in another state", he said.
He stressed that the financial markets, which are considered to be a highly regulated sector of economy, are not harmonized within the EEU. Suleymanov said that over the past 20 years the EEU member states' ways were somewhat different and, consequently, the countries are at the very beginning of the harmonization process.
To recall, on 2 January 2015, Armenia became an EEU full member. On 10 October 2014, Armenia signed the relevant agreement in Minsk. In 2015 Kyrgyzstan may also join the EEU. It signed the relevant agreement in late December 2014.