3-4 YEARS LEFT FOR THE "CAUCASIAN TIGER"
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[06:34 pm] 06 September, 2006
In some 3-4 years Armenia will not have a chance to be proud of
its economic progress. This was the prediction made by Armenian and
foreign specialists during the presentation of the 2005 report titled
"Economic Development of Armenia".
In order to have constant economic progress there must be institutional
reforms in Armenia, otherwise the country will not repeat its
phenomenon, said Roger Robinson, representative of the World Bank
in Armenia.
He invites attention to the fact that if several branches of economy
have marked constant progress throughout the past years, the same
cannot be said about the tax sphere. There are spheres where there
has been no progress at all, Mr. Robinson says bringing as an example
the investigations carried out by the World Bank in Armenia together
with the Euro Bank. In other words, Mr. Robinson tried to prove that
it is easy to make reforms when everything is so bad.
The representative of the World Bank found is difficult to mention
the name of someone who would be able to carry out institutional
reforms. He said that he has worked with the members of the RA
Government and that the Government is quite stable.
The report prepared by the Armenian-European center for economic policy
and law consultation outlined the stable development of the economy of
Armenia. What is especially impressive is that Armenia is the second
among 181 countries by its Gross Domestic Product (14%). Besides,
if Armenia and the EU countries preserve the average annual growth
of the last five years (12.2% and 1.8%), in 19 years Armenia will
reach the EU average index by GDP per person.
So, the analysis of the report shows that Armenia competes with the
countries which have oil and gas resources. President of the Central
Bank Tigran Sargsyan was also pleased with the report. He claimed that
the high tempo of economic development will be preserved as the country
has a potential which will be preserved for the coming three years.
Nevertheless, representative of the World Bank Roger Robinson warned
that the figures of economic development won’t be preserved for long,
and unless the strategy is revised, there may be no progress at all.