news.am, Armenia
Jan 2 2010
RA economy to reach 2008 level in 2013
13:23 / 01/02/2010Armenian former Finance Minster Levon Barkhudaryan
considers that expiring year was a one of unexpected recession, that
we will end with 15% economic recession, 5% inflation and the
reduction of import totaling 30%, whereas export ‘ 40%. According to
him, interestingly taxes-GDP ratio made about 16% that is a quite poor
indicator. The expert said that construction sector experienced nearly
50% reduction in 2009, thus collection of taxes was not sufficient.
Hence, tax-GDP ratio should have gone up, but it did not happen.
`Crisis revealed our economy’s dependence on import. RA economy does
not depend on export, negative balance of external trade is covered by
income from private transfers,’ Barkhudaryan said.
Forecasting the coming year developments, he informed that they drew
up optimistic and pessimistic scenarios on economic developments. The
expert considers that under the optimistic one, RA economy will reach
the level of 2008 in 2013, whereas under the pessimistic ` in 2015.
Thus, welfare expenditures in 2015 will total 60% of budget, unlike
40% that was registered before the recession. Barkhudaryan also
underlined that crisis is one of the reasons of deep economic
recession. The second reason is wrong economic policy carried out by
the government.
A.G.