YEREVAN. - The economic growth of Armenia should have been 7.5 instead of the present 3 percent, Armenia’s ex-PM Hrant Bagratyan said the aforementioned Wednesday at the discussion of the report on state budget execution for 2015.

Considering that the global economic growth in 2015 constituted 3.2 percent in 2015, and Armenia falls behind the developed countries three times, having 2.5-3 times higher marginal productivity of capital, the economic growth should have been - with a little discount - at least 7.5 percent.

The absence of such growth means that there are structural problems in the economy.

The economic growth of January-April 2016 also makes me wonder. If according to the statistical data it constituted 6 percent, there being no inflation, the revenues should have grown by 6-7 percent, whereas they reduced by 0.1 percent as compared with the analogous period in 2015.

Overall, in the last 8-9 years, the budget reduced from 2.7 to 2.35 bln dollars. And there seems to be no end to this, he added.

This makes me wonder not only about the quantity, but also the quality of the GDP growth.

“Do we need a growth based on the mining industry? If the questions can be decided that way, then let us send all the escalators to Teghut mine, dig up everything to make our economy grow by 20 percent. And what is next?” Bagratyan said.

The growth was ensured at the expense of the sectors with weak tax imposition. But then we should think how to change the tax imposition in the area of construction; something similar has already been proposed,” he added.

As to the agriculture, it is impossible to check its growth, and this insinuates great doubts, something that has also been told earlier, he noted.

 

 

According to the MP, the Government’s arguments on the negative impact of economic difficulties in Russia are not fully convincing.

“According to the results of 2015, Russia expected 7 percent drop in economy, whereas it declined by 3.7 percent. That is, Russia turned out to be more stable than the West and International Monetary Fund (IMF) expected,” Bagratyan concluded.