ArmInfo. In Armenia, the growth of economic activity in January- April 2023 accelerated to 12.2% per annum, against the 2.1-fold increase in exports and by 93.9% in imports.
Similar indicators at a much more subdued pace were recorded in the same period of 2022,when economic growth activity by 9.4% was accompanied by an increase in exports and imports by 25.2% and 39.1%, respectively. This is evidenced by the preliminary data of the RA Statistical Committee, according to which the sectors of trade, services and construction continue to be the main drivers of double-digit growth in economic activity in the country.
In the industrial breakdown, almost all sectors recorded growth in January-April 2023, with the exception of the energy complex, which moved down from double-digit growth to a decline, while a year earlier, it was the energy complex that acted as one of the drivers of growth in economic activity.
It is noteworthy that the current growth in economic activity was much higher than the rates of the pre- Covid analogous period, when 7% was recorded, with a decline in exports and imports by 8.6% and 1.9%, respectively, and the services sector showed the highest growth among industries (17%) and the only decline was in the energy sector (9.2%). The trade sector managed to significantly accelerate the upward trend in y-o-y terms (January-April 2023 to January-April 2022)- from 7.8% to 23.2%. The construction sector also managed to accelerate annual growth rates - from 9% to 16.8%. At the same time, the service sector, while maintaining double-digit growth, somewhat slowed down growth rates from 23.5% to 22.2%, while the industrial sector lingered in low growth, slowing it down even more from last year's 2.6% to the current 2.4%. And only the energy complex could not stay in the upward trend, moving down from 14.1% growth towards a 3.3% decline. Data from the agricultural sector are not available, since they are published in the statistical report only on quarterly terms.
In April 2023 to April 2022, economic activity accelerated in growth to 12.1% (from 8.8% in April 2022 to April 2021). The trade sector, the service sector and the construction sector remained in growth, while the energy complex and the industrial sector were in decline. Thus, the service sector slowed down growth from 27.1% to 20.4%, while the construction and trade sectors accelerated growth from 15.6% and 8.6% to 19.3% and 28.9%, respectively. At the same time, the energy complex and the industrial sector worsened the dynamics from growth by 5.8% and 1.2%, respectively, to a decline by 8% and 0.8%. In the pre-covid similar period (April 2019 to April 2018), all these areas showed growth: the service sector - 16.2%, the industrial sector - 13.2%, trade - 9%, the energy complex - 8.9%, construction - 1.8%.
And in April 2023 economic activity increased more modestly - by 3.4%, than in April 2022, when 5.3% growth was recorded. This was due to a strong slowdown in the growth of the industrial sector, a slight acceleration in the growth of the construction and trade sectors, as well as a decline in the service sector and the energy complex. In particular, for April of this year, the growth of the industrial sector slowed down to 1.6%, the construction sector - accelerated to 11%, the trade sector - accelerated to 3.9%, along with which the dynamics of the services sector (a decline of 1.35%)_ and the energy complex (a decline of 15.9%) worsened. As a comparison, we note that a year earlier, in April 2022, in addition to the energy complex, which accelerated the decline to 13.9%, all other areas showed growth: the industrial sector - by 11.7%, the construction sector - by 8.5%, the service sector - by 2.1%, trade sector - by 1.7%. Prior to this, in the pre-Covid 2019, in April, only the service sector showed stagnation-low growth of 0.5%, while other sectors were in decline: construction - 10.8%, energy complex - 3.3%, industry - 3%, trade - 1, 8%.
The price index of industrial products in January-April 2023 compared to the same period in 2022 decreased by 1.1%, in April 2023 compared to April 2022 - by 3.3%, and in April 2023 - by 2.9%. A year earlier, there was an upward trend in the price index of industrial products: in January-April 2022 compared to the same period in 2021 - an increase of 10.8%, in April 2022 compared to April 2021 - an increase of 9.4%, and in April 2022 decline by 2.4% was recorded. In pre-Covid 2019, the dynamics of the industrial products price index was similar to last year's dynamics, but looked very modest: in January-April 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 - an increase of 0.4%, in April 2019 compared to April 2018 - an increase of 0.6 %, and in April 2019 - a decline of 3.5%.
The consumer price index in January-April 2023 compared to the same period in 2022 increased by 6.2%, in April 2023 compared to April 2022 - by 3.2%, and in April 2023 alone - by 0.1%, which is below inflation similar periods a year ago: 7.4% per annum (in January-April), 8.4% per annum (in April) and 2.3% (per month). In pre-COVID 2019, in January-April, y-o-y inflation was recorded at 1.7%, the y-o-y inflation in April was 2.2%, and 0.1% deflation in April alone.
According to statistical data for January-April 2023, the absolute leader is the trade sector with a volume of 1.4 trillion drams ($3.6 billion). The service sector returned to the second place - 919.3 billion drams (2.3 billion dollars), moving the industry sector to the third place - 747.8 billion (1.9 billion dollars), and due to the lack of data on the agricultural sector the construction sector occupies the fourth place - 94.9 billion drams (242,4 million dollars). The volume of electricity generation in January-April 2023 amounted to 3039.4 million kWh, of which 622.9 million kWh in April alone.
Against this background, Armenia's foreign trade turnover shows very high growth, accelerating the y-o-y rate in January-April 2023 to 99.4% from last year's 33.8%, reaching 2.3 trillion drams ($5.8 billion). This is due to an increase in the growth of both factors, exports - from 25.2% to 2.1-fold, and imports - from 39.1% to 93.9%, the absolute value of which reached 844.5 billion drams ($2.2 billion) and 1.4 trillion, drams ($3.6 billion) respectively. Over the month alone, the dynamics of foreign trade turnover worsened from a 22.4% growth in March to a 13.5% decline in April, as a result of an almost equivalent drop in exports and imports by 13-13.8% (after a March growth of 10.7% and 30.2% respectively). In April 2023, compared to April 2022, an 83.5% increase in foreign trade turnover was supported by a similar high growth in exports and imports - by 81.3% and 84.7%, respectively. A year earlier, in April 2022, the growth of foreign trade turnover by 18.9% came from the growth of exports by 27.3% and imports by 14.6%, and compared to April 2021, the growth of these indicators was 22.5%, 19.8% and 24.1% respectively. (The average settlement rate of the dram in April 2023 was 387.74 AMD/$1, and in January- April 2023 - 391.38 AMD/$1, against 470.99 AMD/$1 in April 2022 and 482.55 AMD/$1 in January- April 2022).
