ArmInfo.The forecasts of international organizations and rating agencies on the growth of the Armenian economy in 2022 (1.5 -1.6%) are theoretically correct and sustained, but at the same time they do not fully take into account the changing structure of the Armenian economy, namely, the process of transition from the so-called demand economy to the supply economy, albeit with weakly expressed characteristics.
The experts of the AmRating National Rating Agency, affiliated with ArmInfo IC expressed this opinion in the annual review on the state of the country's banking system (Industry report of Armenian banks).
According to analysts, the state of economic activity in the country will largely depend on the intensification and, if possible, the full implementation of budgeted capital expenditures, on the one hand, and the CBA's monetary policy, on the other.
According to experts, this could include monetary policy aimed at avoiding its further tightening in order to maintain credit activity and economic growth mechanisms in the context of managing the exchange rate as an additional tool to curb inflation.
According to experts, the possible reduction of remittances from Russia will have little effect on the decline in domestic demand due to changes in the structure of remittances in recent years. Moreover, their decline can be fully compensated for not only by seasonality, as it was before, but by a constant, all-season, significant increase in "immigration" and tourist flows to the country, including from Russia, whose citizens, due to Western sanctions, will be limited in the choice of inexpensive places for recreation and remote work, one of the comfortable destinations of which is Armenia.
"It is also difficult to agree with the forecasts of international organizations and rating agencies regarding the reduction in imports due to the fall in aggregate demand and rising prices. Sanctions restrictions in the field of transportation between Russia and the West, in our opinion, will stimulate a significant increase in parallel imports of goods to Russia from Armenia that are not subject to Western sanctions restrictions. Armenia, of course, will start earning on the re-export of large volumes of non-sanctioned goods as well>, analysts say.
The success of the process of increasing productivity and expanding the "import-substituting" assortment for the sanctioned Russia and Belarus will depend on a competent stimulating industrial policy based on the effective implementation of programs to subsidize interest rates and other "paternalistic" measures to modernize and expand production and enhance foreign trade.
Armenia, for which Russia, then China and the EU countries (mining raw materials) are today the main trading partners, has a chance to get out of the current global economic and geopolitical crisis without significant losses, with economic growth in 2022 in the range of 2-2, 5%.
