YEREVAN. – The shadow economy in Armenia is 44.6 percent, opposition Armenian National Congress MP and former PM Hrant Bagratyan stated Tuesday at the National Assembly basing himself on the data by Amnesty International human rights NGO.  

In addition, as per Bagratyan, in the case when Armenia was ranked 110th from among 138 countries five years ago, in terms of the level of shadow economy, now, the country is ranked 129th. And as proof of Armenia’s growing shadow economy, the MP also pointed to the reduction in the ratio between state income and GDP.    

In response, Finance Minister Vache Gabrielyan noted that, owing to the changes in tax legislation and the administrative measures being taken, the state budget revenues cannot drop and added that the tax revenue’s share in GDP has increased. 

And with respect to Amnesty International’s assessment, Gabrielyan joked that shadow economy evaluations cannot have a decimal-degree of accuracy.