ArmInfo.The influx of transfers from Russia to Armenia in 2018 declined with an accelerated increase in the outflow of money in the opposite direction. According to the Central Bank of Armenia, the volume of inflows of transfers from Russia amounted to $ 1.05 billion in 2018, and the outflow to the Russian Federation - $ 471.7 million, which formed the net inflow in this direction at the level of $ 578.3 million.
As a result, the dynamics of the net inflow of private transfers from Russia has noticeably deteriorated - from 22.2% growth in 2017 to 16.1% decline in 2018.The opposite picture is observed in the direction of the "circulation" of money in the direction of the USA. In particular, the growth in inflows from the US accelerated sharply from 3.8% in 2017 to 22.3% in 2018, and the outflow dynamics in the United States unfolded from an impressive 2.3 times increase in 2017 towards a 1.4% decline in 2018 As a result, the volume of inflows from the United States again began to prevail over the outflow, while in 2017 the outflow dominated.In total, the inflow of individuals' transfers to Armenia slowed the growth in 2018 to 1.7% from 14.6% in 2017, making $ 1.786 billion. At the same time, the growth rate of outflow of transfers slowed slightly from 21.2% in 2017 to 20.1% in 2018, reaching $ 1.188 billion. This worsened the dynamics of net inflow of transfers from 7.1% growth in 2017 to 22.1% decline in 2018, forming at the level of $ 597.2 million.As a result, in the total inflow of transfers, Russia's share decreased in 2018 from 60.6% to 58.8%, while in the outflow, on the contrary, increased from 38% to 39.7%.It should be noted that the Central Bank of Armenia, updating its forecast for 2018 at the end of November, has once again revised expectations for the growth of remittances of individuals in the direction of slowing down to 1-3% (against the previously forecasted 5-7%).
The updated narrowed range of forecast for the growth of private transfers of the Central Bank led to lower than expected increase in volume in the third quarter due to a new round of devaluation of the ruble against the background of new US sanctions against Russia.At the same time, the Central Bank did not rule out the likelihood that the ruble devaluation trend would continue in the fourth quarter, on which he based the forecast for the slowdown in growth of private transfers.