Recently in Armenia it turned out that the MPs, journalists, experts and simply people interested in the economy of the country wait for the 20th of each month with impatience.
On that day the National Statistics Service (NSS) releases the preliminary macroeconomic indexes of the previous month for the same period. The next index of the economic growth becomes a theme for discussion. And so on May 20 the NSS released the post-crisis index – 7.2% of the growth of January-April of 2010. Let us remember that the previous index was 5.5% and prior to that the index was approximately 3% growth. Let us remember that the government has planned a 1-1.5% growth for 2010. If it continues this way it will turn out that the government was mistaken in its prediction several times. On the May 20 session of the government prime minister Tigran Sargsyan already publicized these indexes and perhaps this has given certain encouragement to Sargsyan. “It is obvious that our anti-crisis measures have given positive results and the economic growth in the industry gets pretty speedy rates,” he said two days ago. In the aspect of numbers there is some reason for encouragement. Moreover, during the first 4 months has registered the highest growth – 12.9%. The NSS also registered growth in construction for the first time since the fall of 2008. The construction sector has born the brunt of the global recession, contracting by over 30 percent last year. Output in the sector rose by 8.8 percent in January-April 2010. In this regard, several days ago the former prime minister of Armenia Hrant Bagratyan expressed an opinion, “Slump of 2009 in Armenia was so large in Armenia that even if the government doesn’t do anything the growth will be 10-12%.” Besides that even the NSS wasn’t able to disguise a controversy, which is reflected in the huge gap between the raise of unemployment and economic growth. In the conditions of the 7.2% growth the official number of unemployed grew by 5% by reaching 85.200 people. However, according to the government forecast we should have had a different picture. And besides that the monthly dynamics is also quite interesting when we compare the data of April with March. Our colleagues have already reached to advert to that circumstance. Let us only mention that in all of the sectors (besides agriculture) slump was registered in April compared to March. The volumes of industrial goods reduced by 2.7%; construction – 22.3% and services by 12.1%. In the history of macroeconomic indexes of Armenia April has never yielded to March. This gives reasons for worry, which becomes more noticeable in the background of the possible activation of the second phase of the crisis. It is hard to tell to what extent these rumors are serious and adequate for Armenia. Bagratyan, for instance, thinks that if the second stage breaks out it will reach Armenia some time in September-October. However, in the government they don’t speak about this just how they wouldn’t speak about the approaching crisis in 2008. Moreover, they are already sure that by the end of the year the economic growth is going to be higher than expected. “With our economic team we have tried to sum up the results of the development of the economy and the efficiency of our anti-crisis measures and this makes us revise our forecast regarding the macroeconomic indices for 2010,” said Tigran Sargsyan by mentioning that it’s worth to mostly focus on the indices for 2011 in order to figure out what measures are necessary to provide a higher growth in 2011-2012. Let us remember that three weeks ago the government already set the grounds for revision by entrusting the relevant bodies to resume the taxing policy (indeed by restricting tax collection). The international structures are no less optimistic than our government. “We have revised our assessment. Particularly, in the line of the GDP we envision a 4% growth for 2010,” recently stated the director of the Armenian Branch of the International Monetary Fund, Mark Louis. In the prediction of Bagratyan the actual growth can be 2.5-3%, which the official statistics will demonstrate in the frames of 8%. In general, the former RA prime minister has his unique opinion about the “young experts” of international structures represented in our country and their opinions. “The problem of the young people is that they come here for two years and after that they leave. But we have been working in the sector of economy for 20 years now. In two years these specialists change the country. And in the office, he needs to have a “nice story”. It means that whatever he was in charge of should be successful. By this Armenia shouldn’t get too encouraged.” Nevertheless, let us remember that the “youngsters” in parallel with their encouragement also mention the most vulnerable sides of our economy. Recently they have started to speak more often about oligopolies. “The RA economy is characterized in major oligopolies, which ultimately causes debilitation of the competition; expenses grow and the growth of the economy slows down. As of the steps taken in this direction then I think it is too soon to say that the oligopolies decreased,” said Louis. So, the lesson leaned from the crisis were not quite admonishing for us. We don’t do anything against the oligopolies and it’s impossible to change the structure of the economy in a short time especially when in parallel with criticizing the ratio of the construction sector the government does everything to develop this sector. If we add to this the foreign debts and the distrust of the society toward the government it becomes terrifying to imagine how we are going to withstand the second wave of the crisis. All we have to do is hope that this wave fades in Armenia soon as it wouldn’t possibly deviate from Armenia because the practice showed that these phenomena don’t ever ignore our country.