During the government’s session held yesterday the government’s project was 2012 was approved, which contain mainly three priority directions such as increase of economic competition, long-term economic development and development of human capital and institutional capacities. According to the prime-minister, the project is based on the ideology that the state must create conditions for good life. One of the main priorities of the government is economic growth rate, which was revised for the purpose of showing growth. Specifically, the project writes that the years of 2012-2017 should foster high economic growth compared to developed countries. It is planned to have 5-7% growth of GDP. Meantime, president Serzh Sargsyan is expecting higher economic growth starting from this year. “Since 2012 the expectation from the government was 7% economic growth result,” said president Sargsyan during yesterday’s session of the government.
The economic growth rate that is targeted at 7% is very interesting also due to the fact that the in the World Economy Prospects report of the World Bank the prediction for Armenia’s economic growth in January was reduced by 0.2 (from 4.3 to 4.1). Based on the economic information of the countries in the region we know that Armenia is the only country in the region that had reduction of economic growth forecast on the part of the World Bank.
We tried to ask for comments from experts and professionals of this sector. MP and member of ARF Artsvik Minasyan said that he would speak about that issue on June 20 only, when the project would be submitted to the parliament. Ex PM Hrant Bagratyan, who represents the opposition ANC bloc, refused to comment on that issue and said that he had not been able to read the government’s project for 2012.
The head of the parliament’s standing committee on financial affairs Gagik Minasyan told journalists that the main notion of the project would be compatibility, compatible economy, human capital and institutional potential. “If there are no shocks like during the previous years, the government is ready to drive the projects that have been started and bring to the end,” said Gagik Minasyan. However, Minasyan did not answer to our question whether it was realistic to expect 7% economic growth from our economy during this year. However, he promised to talk about it later. Wrapping up this part, we could not get any concrete answer from the above mentioned persons to understand the reasons that could help us expect the mentioned 7% economic growth limit. We hope that we will be able to get an answer to this question at least on June 20 following the submission of the project to the parliament.
Yelena Karapetyan