ArmInfo. "I do not think that the pension reform is untimely, since today the share of citizens in terms of social payments accounts for only 2.5%," Vigen Shahnazaryan, a leading expert of the Financial System Regulation Department of the Central Bank of Armenia, said during a conference initiated by the Club of Economic Journalists of Armenia.
He noted that today one should focus on the opportunity to invest in the country's economy through pension funds, which, according to the expert, will help the government's anti-crisis efforts. <Pension funds need long-term stability. And if we do this, then in the post-crisis period we will have favorable launch environment, "Shahnazaryan stressed.
At the same time, he noted that if the pension reform had not been adopted, it would have led in the future to a global problem - an insufficient level of savings, which in turn would have affected the amount of pensions.
He recalled that according to the reform, from July 1, 2020, nothing will change for citizens who receive wages less than 500 thousand drams, for those whose income is higher, with a gradual decrease in income tax, a similar increase in the threshold of pension payments will occur. So, according to him, in 2023 these citizens will pay 10% of their wages, of which the state will pay 37,500 drams. "As a result, people will benefit more from lowering the income tax than from raising pension payments," the expert said.
Shahnazaryan informed that today there are over 600 thousand citizens in the accumulative pension system of Armenia, of which about 370 thousand have made active transfers in the last month. In this vein, he noted that the lion's share falls on the private sector, while the share of the public sector is only 77 thousand people. Speaking about the profitability of pension funds in Armenia, the expert noted that in the context of the last five years, starting from 2014, the latter averages 9.5%.
To note, a number of lawmakers have prepared a draft, according to which the changes provided for increasing payments to the pension fund from July 1, 2020 are supposed to be temporarily canceled. The lawmakers believe that the withdrawal of these funds from circulation and the additional burden on the budget today, amid the crisis, is completely unjustified. This statutory measure was not designed for a force majeure situation. It artificially lowers the level of demand, so over 8 billion drams will be withdrawn from circulation. Independent analysts also believe that today it is not the time to increase the assets of pension funds, since in any case these resources are mostly spent either on the deposits of banks, which are already suffering from excess liquidity, or are sent to government securities. Thus, the state, on the one hand, allocates money for pensions, and on the other, in fact, attracts them already as state loan obligations. The Central Bank, in contrast to such a position, is mainly concerned not to "let down" the management companies, and therefore insists on observing the rules of the game.
To recall, the defined contribution pension system, obligatory for persons born after January 1, 1974 (for citizens born before January 1, 1974, the pay-as-you-go pension system is in effect) has been introduced in Armenia since January 1, 2014. Within the framework of the mandatory accumulative pension system, there are two pension funds: "Amundi-ACBA Asset Management" CJSC (from November 19, 2013) and " C-QUADRAT Ampega Asset Management Armenia LLC'' (from November 29, 2013). The French company - 51% and ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank - 49% are the shareholders of CJSC "Amundi-ACBA Asset Management". The Austrian investment company C-QUADRAT Investment AG - 74.9% and the German company Talanx Asset Management GmbH - 25.1% are the shareholders of C- QUADRAT Ampega Asset Management Armenia LLC.
The aggregate assets of pension funds are about 280 billion drams. Their weighted average yield is 9.1% per annum.
