ArmInfo. Minister of Economy of Armenia Vahan Kerobyan once again expressed his disagreement with the Central Bank of Armenia, referring to the latest forecasts of the Regulator for economic growth (on14, it was announced 4.9% for 2022, ed. note). He stated this to journalists on June 15 on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the Science and Business Days forum.
In particular, the minister noted that the economy has been strong since the beginning of the year, citing a 12% growth in January-February. "I think it's wrong to talk about economic recovery for the reasons they (Central Bank, ed. note) indicated. The economy was not in a bad state. I did not agree with the Central Bank's previous forecast of growth by 1.6% (this is the regulator's March forecast, ed. note), and now I also have a different opinion," he said.
In this regard, the head of the economic department said that it is necessary to do everything possible to ensure that the economic growth rate is as high as possible, not lower than that set out in the draft budget (7% for 2022, ed. note). Touching upon the issue of revaluation of the national currency, Kerobyan referred to the dissatisfaction of representatives of various sectors of the economy with the policy pursued by the Central Bank. "We once went through this from 2004 to 2007, and it did not lead to anything good. We can say that we destroyed the manufacturing industry in those years. Now we need to do everything possible to prevent this scenario from happening again," the minister said. In particular, he noted that lengthy discussions are now underway with partners to find solutions.
"We are trying to convince them to stop inflation using other tools, rather than an artificial dram revaluation," Kerobyan concluded. Yesterday, during a press conference, Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia Martin Galstyan said that the Central Bank had improved the forecast for GDP growth for 2022 from the previous 1.6% to the updated 4.9%. He explained that the improvement in the economic forecast is due to the revision of rates in a number of areas: the decline in the industrial sector will be 1% against the previous minus 4.7%;, growth in the construction sector improved from the previous 7% to an updated 8.9%; growth in the sector of services will be 7.5% against the previous 3.2%. "This is mainly due to the fact that international visitors are staying in Armenia, and in the short term, the situation of the Russian economy is less depressing than we expected in February-March of this year," he explained.
