YEREVAN. – Armenia’s National Statistical Service (NSS) publicized Wednesday the country’s preliminary macroeconomic indices for 2011, in which the annual economic activity index is 5.9 percent, 168 Zham daily writes. 

“But former PM Hrant Bagratyan considers NSS’s numbers to be simply a bluff. In Bagratyan’s words, for example, the service sector grew due to the fact that auto insurances were included in it, too, in the case when, in reality, auto insurances are expenditures and they cannot be considered products. In addition, as per former PM, if we set aside the mining industry as well, it will become clear that the growth is zero. ‘The other bluff, [is that] they told us last October that the economic activity index is 3 percent, in comparison with October of the previous year. Today we have 4.1 [percent] in the edited version of NSS’s website. Which one is correct? Past year it was announced that GDP growth is 2.6 percent, later they wrote 2.1 percent. [And] The World Bank gave 1 percent,’ Hrant Bagratyan said,” 168 Zham daily writes.