The head of the economic development department of the ministry of economy Artak Baghdasaryan thinks that it is incorrect on part of the Forbes to consider Armenia’s economy as the second worst economy in the world. He says that they have calculated based on several indicators, which reflect a short-term situation only. Concerning the author of the publication Artak Baghdasaryan said the following to Radio Liberty: “Let Mr. Fisher forgive me, but I am not sure that he has really analyzed the economies of Armenia and other 177 countries. If you are taking a role of estimating economies and countries, you must examine all economies. He could say that Armenia has taken a certain place in terms of the annual economic development data. They could write which countries had the highest slump and development. I mean if he is taking an interval, he should evaluate that very interval.” The mentioned publication in the Forbes writes that when classifying economies they have based several indicators, specifically the average rates of inflation and GDP of 177 countries, the forecasts of the International Monetary Fund for 2012, per person GDP and trade balance. Artak Baghdasaryan says that the method of the author is incorrect and is not reliable because in such analysis usually experts should use many indicators.
“Other organizations take much more indicators and information from the results of different surveys and they are trying to analyze economies from different sides such as according to conditions for businesses, competition, etc. It is at least incorrect from the professional point of view to classify a country in the last place basing on those four indicators only,” said A. Baghdasaryan.
By the way, the head of the economy ministry’s economic development department has also paid attention to the fact that the publication was posted in the blogs section of Forbes site, and according to him the ministry of economy has sent a letter to the magazine to find out whether the publication is Daniel Fisher’s personal publication in the blog or the Forbes is involved too.