AmRating: Armenia has a chance to get out of the current global  crisis without significant losses and ensure economic growth in the  range of 2-2.5% in 2022

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%.