ECONOMIC ACTIVITY INDICES OF FIRST QUARTER ARE FAVORABLE

Noyan Tapan
Mar 19 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 19, NOYAN TAPAN. The composite economic indices
calculated by the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) showed a considerable
growth in the first quarter of 2007. According to the CBA press
service, the business environment index made 120.9%, the economic
activity index – 110.4% and the consumer confidence index – 107.4%.

The business environment index shows the average assessment of
organizations on changes in risks and the general economic state,
the economic activity index – the assessment of organizations’
expectations about production volumes, production orders and
reserves. The consumer confidence index is the mean of assessment
on household incomes, expenses and changes in employment, as well as
assessment of attitude to current economic conditions. To calculate
these indices, every quarter the so-called "balances of responses",
whose values range from 0 to 100, are calculated. The value of 50 of
a balance means that the state of the given parameter is unchanged,
if the value is higher than 50, expevtations are optimistic, if it
is lower than 50, expectations are pessimistic.

In the first quarter, 801 organizations and 2,961 households
were studied by the selective principle. The business environment
responses balance made 57.8 against 47.8 in the previous quarter,
the economic activity responses balance – 71.2 against 64, and the
consumer confidence responses balance – 54 against 50.3 (this is the
highest value since early 2005).