The main economic news of the week were quite controversial as it’s characteristic to this pre-election period. During this period usually lots of things become simple and noticeable. Unfortunately, a few people pay attention this and these developments vanish over time. But these developments prove the quality and productivity of governance. The economic week continued the trend of slow but stable devaluation of the national monetary unit. Yesterday the exchange stock market was closed with 392.4 AMD per USD rate. In the exchange points of Armenia the USD was being sold at a more expensive price. Indeed, this is not a very negative thing for the economic market. Moreover, it can conduce to the growth of export rate. However, the next information released from banks was quite controversial and contradicted the stable growth of the AMD. It turns out that in our banking system the savings are being de-dolarized. Before March 2009 the USD was devaluating day by day. The majority of the banking savings were in the national unit. Exactly three years ago the national monetary unit was devaluated by 20% overnight. After the first day of panic the banking statistics stated that the population prefers to save money in foreign currency. But now we have the opposite and controversial picture. The USD is being devaluated but the savings are being de-dolarized. According to the data of last February the 65,3% of the savings was in foreign currency. This year this index reduced and reached 61,2%. Why does the population trust the devaluating AMD? It is really hard to explain this. The short-term savings are in foreign currency though. It is cleared that the attitude of people to the national dram is quite reserved. Unlike the “peaceful population” that trust their savings to the banks the attitude of the financiers is more “implacable” in relation to the AMD. Our banks prefer to provide loans in currency. In 2011, 57,3% of the loans were in a foreign currency. This year this index grew and reached 62%. It means that the “professionals” prefer to lend money in currency. And the population prefers the opposite. These inexplicable phenomena are quite typical to our society. These matters don’t worry anyone right now because the public and economic lives of our society are fully indulged in the pre-election campaign and the expected results of the elections. Even the state cabinet is stagnant. The heads of various ministries and departments are organizers of campaigns of various political parties. They encourage the people to participate and vote for their preferred parties and candidates, participate in rallies and meetings. The state government has fully dived into the campaign and they work under a very tense pressure. After the official launch of the campaign it turned out that they have to work in double shifts. The officials of the local government are on the one hand organizing the campaign meetings of their party leaders and on the other hand try to ban the meetings and rallies of non-governmental parties and candidates. Judging from the made efforts and zeal we may assume that their superiors will appreciate their work based to what extent they succeeded in failing the meetings of the opponents. At any rate, the negative effects of having party representatives in the state government are becoming more visible. The majority of the statesmen devote their working day on fulfilling this or that senseless tasks of their parties. All the ministers and heads of departments demanded that their staffs present names and passport data of their relatives and friends. It seems that the era of communism is back. But they are back with slightly different slogans. We should cope with the fact that in springs of the election years the state bodies turn into party campaign offices and the officials don’t do the functions they are paid for and instead lobby for their respective parties.
