Armenian former Finance Minster Levon Barkhudaryan considers that expiring year was a one of unexpected recession, that we will end with 15% economic recession, 5% inflation and the reduction of import totaling 30%, whereas export — 40%. According to him, interestingly taxes-GDP ratio made about 16% that is a quite poor indicator. The expert said that construction sector experienced nearly 50% reduction in 2009, thus collection of taxes was not sufficient. Hence, tax-GDP ratio should have gone up, but it did not happen.

“Crisis revealed our economy’s dependence on import. RA economy does not depend on export, negative balance of external trade is covered by income from private transfers,” Barkhudaryan said.

Forecasting the coming year developments, he informed that they drew up optimistic and pessimistic scenarios on economic developments. The expert considers that under the optimistic one, RA economy will reach the level of 2008 in 2013, whereas under the pessimistic – in 2015. Thus, welfare expenditures in 2015 will total 60% of budget, unlike 40% that was registered before the recession. Barkhudaryan also underlined that crisis is one of the reasons of deep economic recession. The second reason is wrong economic policy carried out by the government.

A.G.