“Forbes has been really mild to us,” yesterday told our reporter the former Prime Minister of Armenia Hrant Bagratyan when asked about the rating of Forbes magazine regarding Armenia as one of the countries with bad economy. “Both the Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan and the minister of finances Vache Gabrielyan mar the Forbes information… Forbes doesn’t say that Armenia is the second worst with its economy despite the fact that Armenia is at the 144th place out of 193 countries in terms of GDP basket per person (when Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan was elected we were at the 114th place). Forbes has elaborated a system of data, according to which only Madagascar lags behind Armenia with its rates of economic development. The Prime Minister and the finances minister either don’t understand this or pretend not to understand that,” said Bagratyan and presented the results of the survey done by the Armenian economists, which reveal the economic situation of Armenia based on 7 basic principles (competitiveness, business conduct conditions, development of human capacity). In the survey titled “The rating of progress and its components 2006-2011” (see the table) included 101 countries, in which Armenia is mildly said not among the countries with good economy. In our region the highest score was given to Georgia – 191st place. Armenia occupied 96th place among 101 countries. On this chart Azerbaijan occupies 9th and Turkey 13th place. “If here at least one number is wrong let the Prime Minister and the Finances minister respond. I also encourage the Armenian President respond to this chart and argue about that if they can. During these 4 years Armenia degraded in all the charts and lost 120 points. There is no need to discuss who Tigran Sargsyan, V. Gabrielyan and Artur Javadyan are. They should be banished from their positions,” stated Hrant Bagratyan.
