Armenian GDP growth in 2010 may exceed projected targets twice: PM ARKA, 10.05.2010

Armenian GDP growth in 2010 may exceed projected targets twice: PM
ARKA, 10.05.2010

Armenia’s full-year economic expansion may exceed the projected target by 2 or 2.5 times, prime minister Tigran Sarkisian said Sunday, linking it with favorable international economic situation. When drafting its 2010 budget, the Armenian government projected a 1.2% GDP growth for this year.

‘If the international financial and economic situation stays within the frameworks as described by IMF in its 2010 forecasts, we are sure to have twice as bigger GDP growth than we have projected,’ Sarkisian said to journalists.

IMF has projected a 1.8% GDP growth for 2010 and a 3% growth for 2011. According to its World Economic Outlook report, the real economic growth in 20105 may rise to 4.5%.

According to the prime minister, the government is implementing currently a more conservative scenario. “Today we can say that with high GDP growth rate we shall be able to ensure high revenue collection rate and due to it we shall form certain reserves in our stabilization fund to be prepared for new challenges abundant in the modern world,’ he said.

Armenian GDP contracted by as much as 14.4 percent in 2009 after a decade of robust growth. It resumed in the first quarter of 2010 as economic conditions around the world, and in Russia in particular, began to improve. In the first quarter the GDP was reported to expand to 5.5%. -0-