Today the deputy minister of the RA Ministry of Agriculture Robert Makaryan and the CEO/President of "Farm Credit Armenia" UCO CC Armen Gabrielyan signed a memorandum on the cooperation ensuring the realization of the program subsidizing interest rates of the loans disbursed to the agricultural sector.
"Two financial institutions - "ACBA-CREDIT AGRICOLE BANK" CJSC and "CARD AgroCredit" UCO, are already participating in this program; and today "Farm Credit Armenia" UCO also joined the program, which is a very important step for us, as the presence and experience of qualified financial institutions in this sphere will result in financing agricultural sector with larger scales. In my opinion such programs will contribute that we shift from social to industrial agriculture more quickly", - mentioned the deputy minister Robert Makaryan. According to the deputy minister trainings are organized in the regions to provide certificates that ensure applying for the program. At the moment there are around 5 thousand applicants, 1700 of which have already participated in the seminars, and 1300 applicants have already received the certificate.
The CEO/President of "Farm Credit Armenia" UCO Armen Gabrielyan in his turn assured that this program will grant farmers the opportunity to improve their farms. "I think this program will partly supply the needs that are present in the sphere of financing our country’s agricultural sector". Armen Gabrielyan also assured that their services will be available for the interested people in all the regions of the country, except for Gegharkunik, Lori and Shirak regions. We should also mention that in the frames of the program the beneficiaries are provided loans amounted to 3-10 million AMD, with 5% annual interest rate, instead of the previous 8%. For the borderline communities and agricultural cooperatives that currently receive social support the interest rate is 3%. In order to apply for the program the potential beneficiaries must pass a compulsory training in the regional institutions of the Agricultural Development Fund and receive the certificate that will authorize them to apply to the financial institutions.