About ten days ago, when the National Statistics Service publicized the macroeconomic indices of the past 7 months, we honestly thought that the pro-government economists and state officials would tend to avoid comments of admiration.
The reason was that we didn’t have much room to brag. Of course the official statistics showed 4% growth instead of the predicted 1.2% but compared to the previous months the rates of growth have slumped almost twice compared to the previous months. And if we add to this slump of agriculture in the crisis year by 23% and over 7% inflation then there is nothing to be glad about. But thanks to our statesmen we were able to find one or two positive indices and get it over with by emphasizing those. These indices relate to industry and foreign trade. We will speak about the industry in a separate article but now let’s start with the foreign trade. Thus, according to statistics during January-July of the current year compared to the same period of the previous year the exportation from Armenia grew by 43.3% and importation – by 22.8%. But in absolute volumes the situation is really miserable. During the mentioned period the importation is almost 4 times bigger than the volume of exportation (2.036 billion USD versus 512.7 million USD). However, when it’s necessary to form an “optimistic atmosphere” by leading the principle of not half empty but half full we may ignore the absolute figures and only speak about positive dynamics. For example, the head of the NA standing committee on finances and budgetary issues Gagik Minasyan did just like that. Two days ago he commendably told the reporters that the volumes of exportation have almost twice exceeded the growth of the volume of importation. In the aspect of purely mathematics everything is correct indeed. But what does this growth mean in the qualitative aspect and is it worth being glad because of that? In order to answer this question we should first of all observe the structure of exportation. However, as for the first 7 months the figures (in accordance with product types) were not publicized by the statisticians we will use the data of the first quarter. Moreover, the data of the first quarter are more impressive because the exportation has grown by 55.9% and amounted to 442.8 million USD and the importation grew by 24.4% amounting to 1.723 billion USD. But let us leave the importation and importers aside for awhile and let’s focus on exportation. What has been in the first quarter of this year and at the expense of what the 55.9% was registered? The response to this question can be found on the official webpage of the National Statistics Service of Armenia in the customs statistics section. Specifically, in the document “Foreign trade of Armenia in product groups, 1st quarter” we can clearly see the structure of exportation in accordance with certain categories of products. We have pointed out 10 out of the 36 product groups, the volume of exportation of which during the first quarter of this year amounted to 353.4 million USD. And that is almost 80% of the whole exportation. Thus, the abovementioned products are the “pillars” of our exportation. At the very bottom of the table we may see that compared to the first quarter of the current year the exportation volumes of the 10 products (with the customs value) almost twice exceed the figures of the previous year for the same period. But we don’t reach to get too thrilled because the figures of the first line create very sad ideas. With its ratio this product is the highest in the exportation structure. Instead of the first quarter of the previous year instead of 25.4 million USD the volumes of the current year rose by 3.8 times, by amounting to 96.5 million USD. And this growth had a big investment in the high index of exportation. The Armenian aluminum plant produced 13,705 tons of aluminum foil in the first seven months of the year, by 15.4% or 1,831 tons more than in the first seven months of 2009, according to figures released by the National Statistical Service. It also said the plant produced 17.7 tons of rolled aluminum, by 48% less than in Jan-July of 2009. Armenia’s chemical output in the first seven months of the year grew by 39% year-on-year to 5.528.8 billion Drams. It also said chemical sales in the reporting period of time amounted to 7.3 billion Drams. According to NSS numbers, production of plastic goods grew by 20.3% year-on-year to 5,470 tons. Let us pay attention to volumes. Last year in the first quarter 31.841 tons were exported and this year – 1.8 times more, 57.603 tons. And a natural question is originating. How does it happen that the exportation volumes of the same product type grows 1.8 times and by the cost – 3.8 times. And to this question there is a logical response. It means that the price had grown. Thus, you can state that the growth of the greatest item of exportation has grown in volumes because of the price increase. We have seen the same phenomenon in the table for all the goods that have high level of exportation. The only exception is the diamond, in the case of which we have a slightly unclear picture. If we believe in the data of the table (which we didn’t invent) it turns out that the price of the diamond has decreased three times. But it is not quite so and most probably this is connected with technical matters. As we have any more detailed information on diamonds let us leave it on the side. In the case of others, if you have a wish, you can get the data in the table of the webpage of the NSS. Let us add that the sheep and the goats also played their modest role in the growth of the exportation and for the show of good numbers. More accurately we mean the ones, who do business by selling sheep and goats. Thus, if we believe in the official figures in the first quarter of the previous year last year from Armenia 500 sheep and goat were exported from Armenia, worth 33.000 USD. And this year 17.27 goats and sheep “abandoned” Armenia by injecting 1 million 124.000 USD in the economy of Armenia. Indeed this makes a tiny percentage in the volumes of exportation but it creates a very impressive rate of growth – 33 times. And if for us the important thing is not the absolute figures but the difference of the growth rates then we should maximally be proud of the goats and sheep.