Tuesday, July 31 2018 12:47

ArmInfo. In Armenia, economic activity in the first half of 2018 increased by 8.9% per annum against the background of the prevalence of the upward import rate  over exports. In June of this year,by June 2017 economic activity  increased by 9.6%, but only in June 2018 - by 12.4%. As a comparison,  we note that a year earlier, in the first half of 2017, by the same  period of 2016, economic activity increased by 6.1%, in June compared  with June 2016 - by 5.1%, but only in June - by 9.1% %.

According to the final data of the Armenian National Statistical  service, the growth of economic activity in the first half of 2018  was largely determined by the services sector - by 18.1% and the  construction sector - by 13.5%, against which the growth of other  industries looked modest: the trade sector - by 9.1%, the  agricultural sector - 5.5 %, industrial sector - by 3.7% and energy  complex - 1.5% per annum. A year earlier, in the first half of 2017,  the growth was in the trade sector - by 12.6%, industrial sector - by  12.4%, services - by 10.9% and energy complex - by 5.2%, while the  agricultural sector and the sphere construction kept a downtrend -  respectively by 1.4% and 10% per annum.

The industrial production price index increased by 3.6% in the first  half of 2018 to the same period of 2017, by 4.1% in June 2018 as  compared to June 2017, and by 2.4% only in June 2018. A year earlier,  in the first half of 2017, by the same period in 2016, the industrial  production price index increased by 3.8%, in June 2017 by June 2016 -  by 4.9%, and only in June 2017 - by 0.5%.

In the same month (in June), the agrarian sector gave a decisive  impetus to the growth of economic activity, a 3.2 times increase in  volume (against a 3-fold increase in June 2017), a construction  sector with a growth of 17.6% (against a 28% in June 2017), and the  trade and services sector is much more modest - 3.8% and 8.4%,  respectively (against growth of 10.4% and 4.8% in June 2017). The  industrial sector and the energy complex in June 2018 reached 5.8%  and 7.8%, respectively, having forgiven the decline by 3.4% and 1% a  year earlier.

In terms of growth rates, the services sector and the agricultural  sector were leading in terms of growth rates (June 2018 to June 2017)  - 21.2% and 14%, respectively, which was slightly below the energy  complex's rate of 10.9%, while the industrial sector, construction  and trade sector showed more modest growth - 5.6%, 4.2% and 3.3%  respectively. A year earlier, in June 2017, by June 2016, these  sectors also showed growth: the trade sector and services - 11.9% and  10.1% respectively, the energy complex - 9%, the industrial sector  and the agricultural sector - 3.8% and 3.4% respectively, and the  construction sector was distinguished by a minus trend of 4.3%.   According to statistical data in the first half of 2018, the absolute  volume of leadership is held by the trade sector with a volume of 1.3  trillion drams ($ 2.6 billion). The industrial sector is on the  second place in terms of volume - 805.03 billion ($ 1.7 billion), the  third - the service sector - 777.8 billion drams ($ 1.6 billion), the  fourth - agriculture - 269.7 billion drams ($ 559.6 million), and the  fifth - the construction sector - 127.8 billion drams ($ 265.1  million). The volume of electricity generated in the first half of  2018 was 3852.8 million kWh, of which only in June - 615.1 million  kWh.

At the same time, Armenia's foreign trade turnover in the first half  of 2018 was 1675.7 billion drams ($ 3,476.1 million) with an annual  growth of 28.9%. In its structure, the volume of exports has  undergone an annual growth of 20% to 561.6 billion drams ($ 1165.2  million), and imports - an annual growth of 33.9% to 1114.1 billion  drams ($ 2310.9 million). Only in June 2018, foreign trade turnover  decreased by 0.9% due to a decrease in imports by 6.1%, while exports  grew by 11.1%, and compared to June 2017, the growth of foreign trade  turnover by 15.7% was mainly caused by imports - 20.8%, rather than  exports - 6.7%. A year earlier, in the first half of the year 2017,  foreign trade turnover increased by 24% per annum due to an increase  in exports by 21% and imports by 25.8%, while the June decrease in  foreign trade turnover by 13.4% was triggered by a 17.5% drop in  imports and exports by 5.1%, but compared with June 2016, foreign  trade turnover increased by 25.2% due to the growth of imports by 29%  and exports by 19%.

The average calculated exchange rate for dram totaled 482.62 dr / $  in June 2018, and 482.04 dr / $ 1 in the first half of the year,  against 481.52 dr / $ 1 in June 2017 and 484.57 dr / $ 1 in the first  half of 2017 .