ArmInfo. The Central Bank of Armenia slightly improved its forecast for 2020 for a decline in the inflow of private transfers to 19-22% from the previously expected 22- 25%. This is set out in the Central Bank's Monetary Policy Program for the Q3 of 2020, published on August 30, where the forecast for Armenia's GDP for 2020 was revised towards a larger decline by 6.2%, against the previously predicted 4% decline. The Central Bank causes a slight improvement in the outlook for individual remittances by a significantly lower than expected decline in their volume in the second quarter.
The Central Bank of Armenia draws attention to the change in the country structure of private transfers: the reduced volume of transfers from Russia is being compensated by remittances from the USA and other countries, presumably due to the growing transfers of an "altruistic" nature. To note, according to the Central Bank of Armenia, the inflow of transfers from individuals to Armenia accelerated growth in 2019 to 9.7% from 1.7% in 2018, amounting to $ 1.959 billion. At the same time, the growth rate of the outflow of transfers accelerated slightly - from 20.1% in 2018 to 22.4% in 2019, amounting to $ 1.455 billion. This slowed down the decline in the net inflow of transfers from 22.1% in 2018 to 15.5% in 2019, having formed at the level of $ 504 million. The share of Russia decreased in 2019 both in inflow from 58.8% to 53.9%, and in the outflow - from 39.7% to 29.3%. The inflow of transfers from Russia to Armenia in 2019 turned the trend vector towards growth by 0.6% from a 1.4% decline in 2018. At the same time, the dynamics of money outflow in the Russian Federation turned towards a decline of 9.7% from 25.4% growth in 2018. This brought the trend of net inflow of transfers from Russia from a 16.1% decline in 2018 to a 9% increase in 2019. But in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic and the restrictive measures introduced led to a drop in the pace of private transfers. Thus, in January-July, the inflow of transfers from Russia to Armenia sharply accelerated the y-o-y decline to 28.2% from 2.9% in the same period of 2019. At the same time, the outflow of transfers from Armenia to Russia grew by 0.9% from 1.6% decline a year earlier. This slowed down the annual decline in net inflow of transfers from Russia to 49.2% in January-July 2020 from 3.9% in January- July 2019. A deterioration in the dynamics was observed in transfers to the United States, in particular, the annual growth of inflows from the United States slowed down to 22.1% in January-July 2020 from 30.8% in the same period of 2019, with a reversal of the outflow trend in the United States from 53.4 % growth towards a 54.8% decline, as a result of which the net inflow jumped 9-fold (with an exit from the negative level to the positive one).
In total, the inflow of transfers from individuals to Armenia turned the y-o-y dynamics in January-July 2020 towards a 15.3% decline from 9.1% growth in the same period of 2019. The same deterioration in the trend was observed in the outflow of transfers - a reversal from 23.2% growth to 20.3% decline. As a result, the annual dynamics of the net inflow of transfers lingered in a decline with a slowdown from 17.6% in January-July 2019 to 1.2% in January-July 2020. In the inflow, the share of Russia decreased in January- July 2020 to 45% from 53% in January-July 2019, while increasing in the outflow - from 30% to 38%. And the share of the United States in the inflow, on the contrary, increased in y-o-y terms from 14% to 21%, while decreasing in the outflow from 21% to 12%.