Monday, February 21 2022 17:08

ArmInfo. Armenia's GDP for 2021 grew by 5.7% (from a 7.4% decline in 2020), amounting to 6.983 trillion drams ($13.9 billion), compared to 7.6% pre-Covid period growth in 2019. This is evidenced by the data of the RA Statistical Committee published on February 21.

The quarterly dynamics of GDP in 2021, as in previous years, was negative only in Q1- 34.8%, after which there was an increase of 17.5% in Q2, accelerating in Q3 to 25.6%, but already in Q4 slowed down to 13.3%. As a comparison, we note that in 2020, the quarterly dynamics of GDP was as follows, a decline of 38.7% in Q1, was replaced i by a weak 0.4% growth in Q2, which significantly accelerated to 38.8% in Q3 and also sharply slowed down to 6.8% in Q4.

GDP growth in 2021 came mainly from the service sector - by 7.8%, the trade sector - by 7.5% and the construction sector - by 7.4%, and to a lesser extent from the industrial sector - by 3.3% . At the same time, the energy complex and the agricultural sector were in decline by 0.6% and 1.1%, respectively. A year earlier, in 2020, the service sector was in decline - by 14.7%, the trade sector - by 14%, the construction sector - by 9.5% and the industrial sector - by 0.9%, while the energy complex and the agricultural sector, on the contrary, went in growth by 1.2% and 1.4% respectively. In pre-Covid 2019, the highest growth was shown by the service sector, the industrial sector and the trade sector - 15%, 9% and 8.9% respectively, against the backdrop of a modest growth in the construction sector by 4.6%, with a decline in the energy complex by 1.9% and the agricultural sector by 4.2%.

At the same time, Armenia's foreign trade turnover reversed its dynamics from a 13.2% decline in 2020 to a 17.7% growth in 2021. In its structure, the volume of exports recovered from the 3.9% decline to 19.1% growth, and the same reversal of dynamics was demonstrated by imports - from 17.7% decline to 16.9% growth. In pre-Covid 2019, the upward dynamics of these indicators looked more modest: the growth of foreign trade turnover by 10.4% came from the growth of exports by 9.4% and imports by 10.8%.

It is worth noting that the IMF forecast for 2021 turned out to be the closest to the actual GDP growth in Armenia, while the WB forecasted higher growth, and the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia forecasted a lower one. Thus, in its November forecast, the IMF forecasted Armenia's GDP growth in 2021 by 5.5% with a slowdown in 2022 to 5.3%. According to the January forecast of the World Bank for 2021, an increase of 6.1% was expected, with a slowdown in 2022 to 4.8%. And according to the December forecast of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia, Armenia's GDP was expected to grow by 4.2% in 2021, with an acceleration in 2022 to 5.3%. (The average settlement rate of the dram in January-December 2021 was 503.77 AMD/$1).