The government’s new project has been published and approved by the new government. However, this government cannot be called new because even the president said that there had not been any drastic changes in the government.
One of the chapters of the project is called “expected outcomes of the government’s work”. This chapter writes that through the implementation of the project the government expects the following in 2012-2017:
-provide higher economic growth rate compared to developed countries through 5-7% growth of gross domestic product;
-developing growth of export rate compared to import;
-at least double the lowest wage rate;
-provide minimum 140% of wage/poverty relation indicator;
-increase birth rate up to 1.8;
-provide at least 90% availability of pre-school education for 5-6 years old children;
-increase the level of work (insurance) pension up to the level of 125-135% compared to the poverty line;
-reduce poverty by 8-10%;
-create more than 100,000 jobs, including 30-50,000 jobs out of the sector of agriculture;
-increase the level of state incomes collection at 0.3-0.4% points of GDP.
At first glance it seems that these are good wishes, but something is missing. One of the main problems in the country both before and after elections has been emigration. However, the document posted in the government’s web page does not include anything about emigration. It does not write that as a result of the government’s work the level of emigration will be reduced. This would not be an issue of discussion if the department of migration had not published the report on migration, which contains a lot of facts and information we should be concerned about. According to the official information, only in April the difference of the number of people that departed and arrived was 29.222, which is in fact the number of people that emigrated from Armenia during the mentioned month. In January-April of this year the difference of these numbers was 57.320. Migration can be seasonal as well as people may leave in spring and return in the fall. Usually in the end of the year more people arrive than leave. However, this tendency is not good at all because the seasonal migration is growing too. The number of people that left from the country in the same period of the previous year was less by 10,000 (47.610).
It is very strange that the government does not target expected reduction of migration levels. Does this mean that the government thinks that emigration is not a problem? It could be like that if the president of the country did not speak about that problem before the elections. “Let’s change the conditions of life, let’s give them an opportunity to work and create, let’s help justice win everywhere, cope with poverty, let’s reform emigration into migration back home and let’s give limitless hope for the sake of the CITIZEN OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA,” wrote the text of the words of president Serzh Sargsyan published in the pre-election platform of the RPA. If we look at the issue from another corner, we may say that emigration is in the interests of the government for the purpose of providing the mentioned results. For example, this could help to register success in the efforts to fight poverty. People leave from their country due to different reasons, but the main reason is the social condition. In other words, mainly poor people leave from their country and look for destiny overseas. Emigration cuts down the number of the poor and stimulates growth of money transfers to the country.
In addition to the above said, as a result of emigration the number of voters does not go down, but it increases. In other words, emigration is not a bad thing if we look at it from another corner.