And so the RA National Statistic Service has registered another tremendous growth for our economy. During January-November of the current year the GDP has grown by 13.6%. There is no doubt that you already know about this because such news is shown on TV no less than commercials. We can even say that this is also commercial on behalf of the government.
When the economy registers a 13.6% growth the average monthly salary increases by 20%, unemployment rates are decreased, the foreign goods circulation is grown. That is the best political commercial for our government. In normal countries the government, which could provide such rates, would be “glorified”. No nation would wish to change such a government. But in our case we have a different situation. The TV shows whatever is profitable for the incumbent government. According to the report of the National Statistics Service (NSS) on the Social Picture and Poverty in Armenia poverty level in Armenia has been decreased from 35% of 2004 and reached 27% (2006). This would also be a great mechanism if we were not able to measure the indices of poverty. The level of poverty is determined based on the consumption basket. The more expensive the goods in the basket become the more destitute people become. But as our statisticians have a habit of “moderating” the indices of inflation then we can confidently say that the level of poverty is much higher. However, even based on the official data of the NSS we can see that the government has contradicted itself and has no grounds to brag. In order to prove this it’s is enough to remember the state budget discussions of 2007. There was an interesting prediction in the budget draft. The exportation in 2007 was to grow by 16% and importation by 13.5%. There was time when this prediction has even surprised the head of the People’s Deputy Group (currently the head of the Republican faction) Karen Karapetyan. The latter asked the Minister of Finances and Economy Vardan Khachatryan what this prediction is connected with. If the dollar keeps devaluating then how can the exportation grow? Khachtryan didn’t agree with this and on the contrary claimed that this process was going to conduce to exportation. “The revaluation of AMD enabled investment of new technologies. This is an additional stimulus,” he said. Now let’s review the indices of January-November of the current year, which won’t be essentially changed by the end of the year. Exportation has grown by 21.1% and importation by 47.2%. But no word is said about the fact that importation chokes the rates of exportation. This is enough to tell the statesmen that they were mistaken with their predictions. During the same discussion Khachatryan said that our indices are not bad. But now let’s go further in the past. “The negative balance of our foreign trade amounts to 5-6%. Many countries would dream of such an index.” Now let’s take a look at the indices of the current year – GDP-2711.4 billion AMD, exportation-365 billion AMD, importation-987.3 billion AMD. The negative balance of the foreign trade amounts to 622.3 billion AMD. And that mounts to 23% of the GDP. Now it’s interesting to know which of the countries is going to be jealous? Let’s go further. They were saying that the produce would invest new technology. And industry has grown only by 2.7%. Moreover, without electric power production this index is less – 1.7%. This is a ridiculous index for a country with a 13.6% economic growth. It’s is also surprising that the growing economy has produced less energy this year than in the last one. OK, let’s say that all our nation has started to economize for electrical power and consume natural gas instead of electrical power. But this doesn’t console the fact that we are turning into a “incoherent” country, which only erects buildings downtown and grows tomatoes and cucumber to sell to each other. But this is not essential. By the end of the year our GDP will probably be 3 trillion AMD – that is 10 billion USD. This is a great index for the political dusk and new political dawn. Thus we will soon start to hear the words “10 billion USD” more frequently but our life will not essentially change as a result.