Bagrat Asatryan: Armenian Government Not Adequately Reacted To Crisi

BAGRAT ASATRYAN: ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT NOT ADEQUATELY REACTED TO CRISIS

/PanARMENIAN.Net/
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.