President: Armenia needs high, long-term and sustainable growth

YEREVAN. – On behalf of the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, reception for Armenia’s business community was held today at the Presidential Palace on occasion of New Year and Christmas. The President congratulated the coming holidays of the businessmen, wishing them good luck, Armenian President’s press-service reports.

Sargsyan reminded that over the last decades Armenia always showed up by its economic discipline, which advantageously distinguished it from other countries. According to him, Armenia has always outstood by its steady macroeconomic indicators, and thus the international financial institutions always assessed Armenia as a stable and reliable partner.

The President also noted that 2015 was marked by numerous negative phenomena – decrease in the prices of oil and raw materials, short-term fluctuations in the capital markets, especially in the Asian region, and currency devaluation of developed countries against dollar, which caused panic in the capital markets of several countries. All this, according to Sargsyan, was accompanied by the escalation of geopolitical conflicts and “war of economic sanctions.”

In Sargsyan’s words, it’s not easy to ensure macroeconomic stability and national currency stability, as well as achieve economic growth in such a situation. Nevertheless, according to the indicators of the 11 months of 2011, due to the exerted efforts, Armenia managed to keep its economic environment devoid of negative impact from outside as much as possible, he said.

According to him, in January-November the economic activity index constituted 2.9 percent, whereas in the beginning of the year the experts forecast zero, and, in some cases, negative index. 4.6%, 11.6% and 3% growth in industry, agriculture and area of services (without trade) respectively has been recorded. As compared with last November, the inflation index constituted 1.9%, and the salary growth made up 8.5%. The growth of salaries in the public sector constituted 9.7%.

The President also noted that the active work in terms of reforms continued last year. Armenia went up by three points in World Bank’s “Doing Business,” coming the 35th among 189 countries.

Armenia also recorded progress in UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI) and World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report.

In Sargsyan’s opinion, the issue on export was among the most important ones in the economic policy. According to him, it’s necessary to continue the consistent work in that direction. However, Sargsyan noted that Armenian needs higher, longer term and more sustainable growth, which will not be vulnerable to the negative impact from outside.

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