Armenia’ss economy continues growing but the rates of the growth declined compared to the previous year. The data of the Armenian National Statistics Service come to prove that. Those were released yesterday and relate to macroeconomic indices of January-February of the current year. As we have already mentioned the NSS doesn’t calculate the GDP every month (it is done on a quarterly basis). Instead they are monthly resenting a new index – Economic Activism Index (EAI). Compared to January of the previous year this year EAI amounted to 7,7%. The February index was 1,4%. Although GDP value is not presented per sector but we can see the developments for each sector. Thus, besides construction (the volume declined by 4,1%) in this February compared to the same month of the previous year certain growth was registered. Industry grew by 2,6%, agriculture – 0,1%, trade turnout – 0,1%. The services sector registered most of growth. The volumes of foreign trade also grew. Compared to February of the previous year this year foreign trade rates grew by 12,4% and amounted to 364,5 million USD. In this figure exportation grew by 32% and importation by 7,2%. Let us summarize. The economy grew in all aspects except construction. Moreover, according to January results there was 11,7% slump in the construction sector. And if we review it in the dynamic aspect (comparing February of the current year with January) then besides services almost all the other sectors grew. Before going forward let us remind that in January the state of the economy was in a more favorable condition. The index of economic activation was 7,7%. Indeed the volumes of agriculture and construction declined compared to last year January but industry rates grew by 5,7% and the level of services by 24,3%. Importation has reduced by 1% in January and exportation increased by 21,3%. In short, the results of January were satisfactory and the prime minister has also lauded these results at the IMF. Maybe you could ask us why we are so focused on the January results. The thing is that the State Revenue Committee yesterday issued the list of 100 greatest tax payers for January. The Committee hasn’t summarized the February results and so we have to compare the analysis with the macroeconomic indices of January. Let us first mention that the Committee analyzed the taxes of 440 taxpayers, it means the Armenian large business. As it has already been mentioned the index of economic activity was 7.7 % which means that economic situation has improved. However a contrary situation is observed in the sphere of large business. “In January 2011, the sale income was 138.8 billion dram or decreased by 4.6% in comparison with the same month of the previous year. Moreover, in terms of the mentioned index increase by 23.3 billion drams was recorded in 192 companies and decreased in 225 companies by 28.7 billion drams” – is mentioned in the report of the State Tax Committee. As mentioned above, the exportation volumes from Armenia increased by 21.3% in January and were 66.3 million dollars or 24.2 billion dram. Over 70 % (16.5 billion) of this amount fell to 440 large tax payers. It should be noted that the increase of export volume of the large tax payers corresponds to the general increase of export (the export of big business increased by 21.8% in January). However in case of importation we have quite another image. “In January of the current year, import volumes of the large tax payers decreased by 8.3% in comparison with the same month of the previous year. Moreover import volumes increased by over 19.9 billion dram in 172 companies and decreased by 24.7 billion dram in 80 companies”- is noted in the report of the State Tax Committee. It should be noted that in January import decreased in the Republic only by 1 %. As regards to obligatory payments and taxes paid to the state budget by the big business, it should be marked that in January 2011, about 21.6 billion dram was paid by the large tax payers. Any parallel cannot been drawn here, since last year’s January monitoring includes only 344 tax payers instead of the present 440 tax payers. In any case it is worth mentioning that 13.7 billion dram was paid by 344 large tax payers. In January 2011, 61.4% of the income taxes accumulated in the Republic were paid by the mentioned companies. In January 2011 32 tax inspections were conducted, as a result of which 192.1 million dram subject to budget payment was proposed. What concerns the over payments, large tax payers had 70.7 billion overpayments as of February 1 of the current year, including 50.2 for the value added taxes, 6.7 billion dram for tax obligation. However in January 2011 return of the value added tax from the overpayments of the large tax payers from the budget was not registered. To sum it up, in January the big business was not in a profitable position: incomes as well as import volumes decreased and above all they have dozens of billion drams of overpayment in tax bodies. And as far as microeconomic indices were satisfactory through the Republic, a sole conclusion can be drawn from this. Economic situation was improved due to small and middle businesses.
