Saturday, April 23 2011 11:24
"Long money" policy will be destructive for economy of Armenia: Armenian parliamentarian
ArmInfo. Restraining inflation risks through toughening of monetary conditions may lead to more negative consequences in economy unlike a softer monetary policy, Ara Nranyan, Armenian Parliamentarian from ARF Dashnaktsutyun Party, said in a press conference in Yerevan, Thursday. He said that a softer monetary policy would enhance economic activity and increase population incomes, in fact.
"However, the authorities try to keep the population incomes at a low level hereby trying to ensure competitiveness of economy - goods and services in the international market. However, quite an opposite process is observed," he said. A. Nranyan stressed that migration continues and the official poverty level in the country is 34.1% i.e. over 1 million of people live below poverty level at present. At the same time, Nranyan considers the method of calculating the poverty level disputable. Actually, he said, the real number of the poor is twice as higher as the official figure and totals nearly 2 million people. For his part, a well-known economist Tatul Manaseryan said that the monetary policy couldn't be a method of overcoming the current socio-economic situation. He believes that it is not fair blaming the Central Bank for inflation amid the oligarchic system and monopolies that create groundless price hikes.
"The monetary policy can change nothing as long as monopolies wage their own policy and are out of control," Manaseryan said.
On April 12 Armenian Central Bank Council raised the refinance rate by 0.25 percentage points from 8.25% to 8.5%, Tuesday. In March as against February inflation in the country totaled 0.8%, though after recalculation of inflation in January and February because of the change in shares in the consumer basket the annual inflation is still high 11.5%. In addition, the food price hike contributed to the annual inflation by 8.3%.
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