"STRENGTHENING SERZH SARGSYAN’S BASES"

30/kocharyan
03:38 pm | March 30, 2010

Politics

"Ninety percent of the current issues facing Armenia’s economy have
been accumulated as a result of the economic policies in the past
decade," former president of the RA Central Bank, economist Bagrat
Asatryan told "A1+" today regarding Kocharyan’s recent analysis of
Armenia’s economy.

According to Asatryan, the world could not have had such a serious
impact on Armenia because "Armenia is small, can’t be seen on the
map and the financial-economic crisis couldn’t see Armenia that
well either."

Asatryan says something else is at the core of Kocharyan’s statements.

"Kocharyan is trying to pass political rehabilitation. Nevertheless,
Armenian society associates Kocharyan with the massacres of March 1."

According to Asatryan, there will be more sharp evaluations on the
economy and social policies, "and will create the impression that
there are different views on today’s authorities."

Upon the request of "A1+", Bagrat Asatryan also touched upon the
appropriateness of including enormous amounts of credit for overcoming
the crisis.

"I think the authorities’ unrestricted demand for money last year will
lead to bad things. It will have a negative impact on Armenia’s economy
because the money was not spent, or it wasn’t spent efficiently. We
didn’t need them to use the money for closing the budget gaps, if
they were bringing it only from abroad and with rather high interest
rates," said the former CB president.

He announced that there is an "escape of dram volume" and brought
up figures.

Whereas the prepaid dram was 344 billion drams in December 2008, in
2009 it was 320 billion drams and according to data from March 25,
2010, it was 274 billion drams. In other words, within three months
there has been a reduction of 45 billion drams.

According to Bagrat Asatryan, "the wealthy are the officials and
their families" who prefer not to make investments in Armenia, but
abroad like in Georgia where conditions are more favorable.

Bagrat Asatryan also focused not only on devaluation of the dram,
but deprivation of fame. Today deposits and investments are given
in dollars. In the past year, the volume of credit investments has
increased from 38 percent to 51 percent, while deposits in drams have
gone down from 46 percent to 25 percent.

As far as the core of all issues, Bagrat Asatryan says there is no
clear-cut economic policy, everything is leading to the destruction of
economy and statehood, everything is personalized and the government
is involved in strengthening the bases for Serzh Sargsyan".