NO SHORT-RANGE POSITIVE DEVELOPMENTS POSSIBLE IN ARMENIAN ECONOMY: ECONOMIST

ARKA
May 7, 2009

YEREVAN, May 7. /ARKA/. It will be practically impossible to ensure
positive developments in Armenia’s economy this year, said Chairman
of Economy and Values Research Centre Manuk Yergnyan.

"The most optimistic scenario is a fragile a small economic decline,"
he said Wednesday at Novosti International Press Centre in Yerevan.

The economist pointed out three possible scenarios of economic
development in Armenia by end-2009.

According to the first scenario, quick economic recovery is possible
by end-2009, the expert said, adding the basic scenario says the
economic crisis will last four years.

"If we take into account that the global economy has been in a crisis
for a year with latent periods, economic recovery is possible in two
or three years," Yergnyan said.

According to the third scenario, the future of the global economy
looms, for, according to the economist, it is rather difficult to
make economic forecasts of the global crisis.

"Even the Great Depression in the 1930s was not that global,"
he concluded.

Armenia posted 6.1% year-on-year economic downturn in Q1
2009. According to the RA National Statistical Service, the country’s
GDP totaled 465,508.4mln drams ($1.2bln), with quarterly GDP deflator
index being 101.9%.