ArmInfo.Armenia can achieve economic growth of 7-9% in 2022. Well-known Armenian economist, former Minister of Finance of Armenia David Sargsyan, expressed this opinion on his Facebook page.
According to him, already today Armenia registers economic growth of 9%, which exceeds even the forecast level of 5% positively revised by the Central Bank. <If you follow the classic textbook truths, then the world should enter into an economic crisis, and today's economic growth in Armenia should at least slow down or become zero next year. However, we live not only in an unstable environment, but also in a completely "new" era. There has never been such a situation in world economic history. And this means that there is a high probability that the development of the economy will not be the same as described in textbooks. Moreover, the nature of crises is such that they come when no one forecasts them. And today everyone is forecasting a crisis and it is very likely that the world economy will not experience a crisis, and the Armenian economy will continue to grow at a high pace>, Sargsyan stressed.
Meanwhile, the financier recalled that in terms of economic development on a global scale, the world lives in a very unstable environment. On the one hand, the global currency crisis and the policy of quantitative easing by the central banks of developed countries for almost a decade, and this is simply "printing money", led to the highest global inflation in 40 years. On the other hand, the Russian-Ukrainian crisis and unprecedentedly large-scale sanctions threaten to deepen global inflation and slow down global economic growth. All this is due to the increase in interest rates by the national banks of developed countries and creates even greater risks for global economic growth.
The IMF is in no hurry to update its forecast for the growth of the Armenian economy in 2022, leaving it at 1.5%. However, the World Bank, on the contrary, improved the forecast for Armenia's GDP growth from the previous 1.2% to 3.5% (against the actual 5.7% growth in 2021). And according to the updated forecast of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia, this figure will reach 5%.
It should be noted that according to statistical data, economic activity in Armenia in January-April 2022 increased by 9.4% per annum, against the backdrop of an increase in exports and imports by 25.2% and 39.1%, respectively. It is noteworthy that the current growth in economic activity turned out to be higher than the rates of the pre-Covid similar period. In terms of industry, in January-April 2022, growth was registered in all sectors, and the service sector and the energy complex are more noticeable. In April 2022 alone compared to April 2021, economic activity increased by 8.8%. Growth was observed in all sectors: the service sector (27.1%), construction (15.6%), trade (8.6%), energy complex (5.8%), and the industrial sector (1.2%).