Several days ago when deputy minister of finance Vardan Aramyan said that he thought the economic slump for 2009 would be 12-15% many people were looking forward to see what the official statistics would report. One day later the statistical services published information, which was worse than the prediction of the deputy minister.
The economic slump in January-June 2009 (compared to the same period of the previous year) was 16.3%.
Two months ago prime-minister Tigran Sargsyan said that the economic rates would become worse during the coming 9 months and it was not excluded that this year would be closed with 20% economic slump. However when the economic information of the first part of the year was published in July, there were still some optimistic signs. It was a reason for the prime-minister to make an optimistic long speech concerning the economic situation during a governmental session on June 23. “According to our predictions the economic slump should have been higher than we have reported. We did not exclude that it could reach 20% during the year. Certainly it was a pessimistic scenario, but the report published by the statistical services recently contains some optimistic signs,” said Tigran Sargsyan one month ago. What positive signs? First, he meant the sector of construction. During 5 months the construction capacity was cut down by 53.5%, but during that month the growth rated at 130.8%, i.e. in June the construction capacity was more by 2.3 times than in May. The prime-minister says it is a result of positive expectations and the efforts of the government (providing state guarantees to construction companies). He says that the establishment of the mortgage fund supported this change too.
The prime-minster says there has been growth in the sector of services as well (0.9%). He said that the reduction of the production sector capacity by 12% would be realistic. He said that the 2,5% slump in the sector of agriculture was seasonal and he said that the situation would change in August. Eventually, the prime-minister says it is a positive sign that the export capacity has grown by 37% and the import by 45% (monthly). These were the positive tendencies. If it is a tendency, it should continue during the coming months too. The facts of January-July show that the expectations of positive signs were not justified. If the growth of export and import in June was 37 and 45% compared to May, the monthly growth of export and import in July was 15.6% and 1.4%.
The situation is not optimistic in the sector of agriculture – there was 2.1% slump in January-July (almost equal to the first half of the year). The sector of services fell down by 0,5% instead of the 0.9% growth in January-June. We will not discuss the production because the problems of this sector are too deep. As for the sector of construction, it turns out that the efforts of the government, the creation of the mortgage fund and other activities resulted in a 2.3 times faster growth had a potential of one month. If the growth rate was 130.8% in June compared to the previous month, the growth rate in July compared to June was only 4.5%. It means that the monthly rate of development was by 30 times less, which is strange after the optimistic moods in the previous month.
Now there may be critics addressed at the media and they may ask why the media don’t conduct deeper and professional research and analysis. There is no need for that. What we do now is that we are speaking of the fact that one month ago the government had more reasons to be optimistic than now. Definitely this is the reason why the first leaders of the country did not speak of the 18.5% slump and other things because there is nothing to speak about this time.
On the other hand, if they work hard they may discover some good things in the mentioned economic slump of 18.5%. Last month, when the slump rate was 16%, the prime-minister announced that the shadow of the economy had been cut down by 16%. Later we understood that the justification of the mentioned announcement was the fact that as a result of the 16% slump the retails trade capacity had not reduced. Now, when the economic slump is 18.5%, the retail trade capacity has not fallen but has grown by 0.1%. Thus, there are justifications to announce that as a result of numerous efforts the government has managed to cut down the shade by 18% during January-June months of this year. In other words, one can always find reasons to be happy; it’s all about the wish.