The economic indicators of this year are much inferior to last year, Tadevos Avetisyan, program coordinator of the Office of Economic Research of the ARF Bureau told reporters on Tuesday.

According to him, if in January-June 2019, the activity was 6.8%, then for the same period in 2018 it was 9.1%, then for some political reasons there was a certain decline, and activity, according to the results of 2018, amounted to 5,2%.

“The authorities say that investments are growing by 21%, however, they are silent about the fact that direct investments fell by 11%, which is connected with the presence of investment risks, which still persist,” he said adding that tax revenues will not be unprecedented either.

“Even if the fees in the amount of AMD 62-64 billion, which the authorities are talking about, are met, the growth will be 15%, which is only 2-3% more than in recent years,” he noted.

According to him, exports for the first half of the year recorded a 0.5% decline, and only taking into account indicators for July, an increase of 3.5% was recorded compared to the previous year, while for 4-5 months of 2018, there was 25% export growth.

The number of employees, as noted by the representative of the ARF, is approximately 576 thousand, and over seven months the figure increased by 9%. But half of the seats were created before the revolution, while in 2018 the growth was 10%. The average salary increased by 5-6%. In 2017-2018, there was the same dynamics. Unemployment increased from 21% to 22%.

The number of births fell by 150 people, the number of deaths increased by 572. The resident population decreased by 8,200.

Tadevos Avetisyan noted that by the end of the year the indicator of economic activity will be at the level of 4-5%, taking into account the decline in agriculture, which is not a revolutionary indicator, this was recorded almost every year.