DRAFT STATE BUDGET IS IN NEED OF RECALCULATION, ECONOMIST T. MANASERIAN BELIEVES
Noyan Tapan
Nov 26, 2008
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 26, NOYAN TAPAN. The draft state budget is in need
of serious recalculation because when submitting the draft to the
National Assembly, the government did not take into account the impact
of the global financial crisis on Armenia, economist Tatul Manaserian
expressed an opinion during the November 26 press conference.
According to him, although the program of the current government
is much better than those declared by the previous governments,
the current government program and that of the coalition were not
reflected in the 2009 draft state budget. The development tendencies
of the science, which is "now in agony", were not reflected in the
draft either, whereas the government has announced its intention to
build a knowledge-based economy.
As regards the economic developments, T. Manaserian said that the
continuous tendency of Armenian imports growth’s exceeding exports
growth is dangerous under conditions of a decline in the inflow of
remittances. In his words, imports grew by 40%, while exports by
1% in January-October 2008 on the same period of last year, and if
the current growth tendency continues, this difference may increase
tenfold in 2009.
In the opinion of T. Manaserian, the Armenian authorities should
conduct a policy of reducing interest rates to encourage the inflow
of money into the country’s economy, while in order to reduce the
negative impact of the possible inflation on the vulnerable groups
of the population, a targeted social policy should be conducted.