11:07,

YEREVAN, MAY 16, ARMENPRESS. The recent flow of international visits to Armenia has contributed to the increase in demand. However, these flows also had an inflationary effect from the perspective of the increase in demand, devaluation of the dram has been observed, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Armenia Hovhannes Khachatryan said during the session of the parliamentary standing committee on financial-credit and budgetary affairs.

Speaking about the expectations in 2022, he said: “In the beginning of the year we were forecasting 6.5% inflation and 1.5% economic growth”. He said that the CBA doesn’t have updated forecasts, the last ones were made in March.

“The main reason, which is both inflationary and contributes to some extent to the economic growth, is the external environment. We have a significant growth in external demand. International visitors have created both demand and increased the inflationary pressures. The inflationary pressures increase also under the growth in uncertainties due to the drastic increase in risk premiers and the increase in international prices which happened because of the drastic disruption of international value chains”, he said.

He said that the CBA still keeps the uncertainties in the forecasts, depending on how long the effects of demand and capital inflow by non-residents will last.

As for the international prices, Hovhannes Khachatryan said they have less doubts that the prices of food and energy prices will be at a high level. The CBA made its last forecast in the period of the maintenance of the geopolitical pressure.