A decline in GDP is expected, which everyone is afraid of. economist

Today, Finance Minister Vahe Hovhannisyan at the National Assembly ավետել է՝ In 2025, the poverty rate, unemployment decreased, and the average salary increased. He also noted that compared to 2021, consumer prices increased at a much more modest rate of 14.8%, which means that average wages in real terms increased by around 30%.

Economist Hrayr Kamendatyan does not believe these official figures.

“All of them are fake indicators, they are just fake” 168.am“Go to any commercial area, enter, make purchases, you will be convinced that these people are just cheating.” I’m just giving you an example: last year, beef cost about 4,000-4,500 drams, now it costs 7,000 drams.

Regarding salaries: all numbers are numbers formed by drawing strokes. If there is an independent audit, if Scandinavian specialists come and conduct studies for just a couple of weeks, this nakedness, the luxury of lies will be revealed at once.”

By the way, the economist paid attention to the probability of GDP decline and did not consider the estimates of inflation trends to be objective at this time.

“The decline, which everyone is afraid of, is due to the elimination of the export of agricultural products of approximately 2-2.5 billion dollars, which was going to the Russian Federation and Belarus. And it’s fairy tales that we have already taken to Singapore, Bulgaria.

There will be 2.5 billion worth of undelivered, unexported products, the issue of a part of which, probably through canning, can be somehow closed by the factories, but still, that canned product is not expected in the European Union, nor will it be certified. These are just cheating.

And those 2.5 billion, with producers and related persons, generated a large volume of taxes. the state budget will not receive those taxes. In addition, insurance companies, banks that have given loans to large greenhouse farms, they will be in a risk zone.

Not to discuss all this and to discuss some inflation issues in the conditions of belt tightening is simply impudence,” he added.

Considering whether the tightening tax policy will not alleviate this situation? for example, recently there was a discussion about raising the excise tax rates in the government, Hrayr Kamendatyan responded that it will not only alleviate, but also deepen the problems.

“In these conditions, producers should be helped more, subsidies should be given, and credit interest rates should be given to them, but instead, these people are raising taxes.”

Minister of Finance Vahe Hovhannisyan announced the following figures at the NA session when he presented the report on the implementation of the 2025 budget: In 2025, unemployment decreased by 0.6 percentage points to 12.8%, compared to 2021, the average monthly nominal wage increased by 48.6%, wage workers by 22.4%, and the unemployment rate decreased by 2.7%.

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