YEREVAN. – Government of the Republic of Armenia (RA) is not particularly optimistic in terms of developments expected in the next year, Haykakan Zhamanak daily reported.

“But in recent days, the government has become more pessimistic in the expectations for next year’s state budget and the state of the economy.

“According to the forecasts by the analysts at renowned American Bank of America Merrill Lynch analytical center, the future of Russia’s economy, which depends on the expected decline in global oil prices, is pretty grim.

“Accordingly, the RF [i.e. the Russian Federation] Government will have to either drastically cut costs or substantially devalue the Russian ruble.

“And the RA economy will get a powerful blow in both cases, since our economy ‘revolves’ around the private remittances received from Russia. Their reduction has a direct impact on the purchasing power of our population, [and] therefore also on the economy and budget revenues,” Haykakan Zhamanak wrote.