Wednesday, December 4 2019 15:55

ArmInfo. For 9 months of 2019, the outflow of private transfers increased by 28.6% per annum - to $ 1.1 billion, while the growth of inflows by only 9.6% - to $ 1.4  billion. According to the Central Bank of Armenia, this reduced the  net inflow in y-o-y terms by 25.6 % - up to $ 334.4 million. For the  Q3 of this year alone the growth of transfer inflows slowed down from  21.4% to 12.6%, while the outflow accelerated from 22% to 23.2%, as a  result of which the dynamics of net inflows turned from 19.6% growth  to 16.8% decline.

Moreover, the inflow of transfers from Russia to Armenia for 9 months  of 2019 decreased by 0.7% per annum with a decline in outflows by  11.3%, and in the US direction, a moderate increase in inflows was  accompanied by a significant increase in outflows - 29.3% against  71.6%. As a result, the net inflow of transfers from Russia reached  an ascending 7.1%, remaining at a positive level, while from the USA,  on the contrary, it turned in the direction of decline - almost 4  fold, moving down to a minus level.

Only in the Q3, an increase in inflows from Russia by 28.9% was  accompanied by a decline in outflows by 8.7% (against the positive  19% and 39.3% a year earlier), and in the direction of the United  States, inflows and outflows continued their upward trend - 2.9 %  versus 35.8% (against growth in inflows by 15% and decline in  outflows by 2.9% a year earlier).

Over the 9 months, Russia's share in the inflow structure decreased  from 60.2% to 54.6%, which was also observed in the outflow - a  decrease in the share from 39.3% to 27.1%. Over the first 9 months of  2019, $ 764.6 million was transferred from Russia to Armenia through  individuals' transfers, and $ 289.1 million flowed off to Russia.  From the USA, $ 200.2 million was transferred from the United States  through private transfers over 9 months, and $ 234.3 million was  leaked from Armenia.

As a comparison, we note that over the 9 months of 2018, outflows  showed higher y-o-y growth rates - 23.5%, while inflows grew by only  3.6%, which reduced net inflows by 20.2%. Then, the inflow of  transfers from Russia increased by 3.4% with an increase in outflow  by 22.5%, but against this background, high growth rates of outflows  and inflows to the United States continued - by 23.1% and 20.8%,  respectively.  The Central Bank of Armenia has revised the forecast  for the growth of money transfers of individuals for 2019 towards a  slowdown - from the previous 5-7% to the current 1-3%, mainly due to  a slowdown in the growth of the Russian economy in the volume of the  construction sector and the trade sector. At the same time, the  Central Bank improved its forecast for GDP growth for 2019,  establishing a range of 6.7-7.2% (an average of 6.9%), against the  previous 5.9-7.4% (an average of 6.6%).  According to the statistics  of the Central Bank, for the whole of 2018, the inflow of transfers  of individuals to Armenia amounted to $ 1.786 billion. At the same  time, the outflow amounted to $ 1.188 billion. In 2018, the share of  Russia in the inflow decreased from 60.6% to 58.8%, while in the  outflow, on the contrary, it increased from 38% to 39.7%.