ArmInfo. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is more conservative in its forecasts. This was stated by the Deputy Minister of Finance of Armenia Armen Hayrapetyan, referring to the discrepancy between the IMF forecasts for GDP growth and the expectations of the RA government. According to the deputy minister, the IMF, aware of its responsibility to the international community, takes a low-key approach. Meanwhile, the financial authorities of Armenia are more optimistic, because they understand what efforts can be made to achieve the planned growth.
"Thus, the IMF is more conservative, and we are more ambitious. And this is normal, because we are the author of our economic growth, and the IMF does not fully see our efforts to achieve 5% growth," he explained. At the end of February of this year. according to the results of the two-week mission in Armenia, the head of the IMF Armenian mission Hossein Samiei stated that in 2019 economic growth in Armenia will become a little more restrained and will make 4.5%. "In the medium term, economic growth is projected at around 4-5%," he said. At the same time, as Samiey pointed out, the IMF relies on several main factors when making its forecasts, and the first one is the growth potential, which reflects the growth possibilities of the economy or possible growth limits.
"In Armenia, in our opinion, this figure is 4-5%," Samiei said. The second factor, he said, is that external factors can have a rather serious effect on small farms. "This year we expect the external environment to play a less positive role, in particular, this will be due to copper prices and remittances from abroad, which occupy a rather significant role in the economic growth of Armenia," Samiyei said. Meanwhile, in the state budget of Armenia for 2019, economic growth is set at 4.9%, the 5-year government program has fixed the goal of ensuring annual GDP not lower than the figure of 5%.