At a press conference today, Vardan Postanjyan, a Prosperous Armenia Part MP and President of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economic Affairs, stated that despite the $3.5 billion foreign debt of Armenia and the lack of resources, the country would never be considered a credit risk. He said that if Armenia pursued a correct economic policy, the increasing foreign debt issue could be managed. Sounding a more pessimistic note was Bagrat Asatryan, former President of the RoA Central Bank. He noted that Armenia’s foreign debt increased by $2 billion last year and that Armenia’s economic downfall was the largest of all CIS countries. Mr. Asatryan argued that the government was unable to spur the economy despite such large capital inflows. "Last year, our foreign debt was five times greater than international norms. In other words, if our overseas partners hadn’t made loans available we would have been forced to use all our export revenues to pay off loan interest. Nothing would have been left for imports." He added that if things continued down this path, future generations would never be able to pay off Armenia’s external obligations. Mr. Asatryan stated that it was time to "rein in" the government on this issue and prohibit businessmen from entering government. "These people shouldn’t be afforded the opportunity to pillage the nation’s coffers and to arrange foreign loans just to line their pockets."