Bagrat Asatryan: Armenian government not adequately reacted to crisis
10.12.2009 14:09 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian government has long denied the impact
of the crisis on country’s economy, Bagrat Asatryan , ex-chairman of
the Central Bank, lecturer at the Department of Economics of the
Yerevan State University told a news conference on Dec. 10 in Yerevan.
"The crisis has become tangible since the middle of 2008,’ he said.
However, the government of Armenia, according to him, in 2008 adopted
a "wasteful budget’ with a 9 per cent economic growth for 2009.
According to Bagrat Asatryan, since early 2009 the government, guided
by emotions, adopted anti-crisis policy without any specific means and
methods for its implementation, which also lacked long-term projects.
The Government of Armenia should first turn to domestic sources (banks
and citizens) and try to implement anti-crisis projects at the expense
of domestic debt, he said. Only after that, the government should try
to attract them from outside. "If in late 2008, we were a country with
a light debt burden, by late 2009 we become a country with a heavy
burden as the country’s national debt is approaching 50 per cent of
GDP," he said.