According to Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan’s assessment, year 2011 was a year of furthering microeconomic stabilization. According to him, even international financial institutions highly appreciated the microeconomic indexes, the coordination of monetary, credit, tax and budget policy of our country.
As opposed to the current Prime Minister, former Prime Minister Hrant Bagratyan has registered not furthering stabilization, but stable regress in 2011, “The Armenian economy has grown as much as the world economy on average, whereas 2 years ago, the Armenian economy went down by 14 percent. So, it is stable insofar as we remained as far from the world average as we had been, our underdevelopment is stable. In this regard, the word stable has been used correctly. In 2011, Armenia didn’t manage to ensure at least a small growth as compared to its neighboring countries. In 2011, the population of Armenia continued to grow poorer. In 2010, the poor accounted for 31 percent, whereas in 2011 they reached 35.8 percent. What stability can one talk about, when the number of the poor has increased?”
As for international institutions’ high assessments mentioned by the Prime Minister, Mr. Bagratyan assured that the Prime Minister lied, “Reputed international organizations register Armenia’s downfall, it is another issue, when we take a look at the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, because these institutions say one good thing and three bad ones. Even Moody’s, which is an organization that makes doubtful assessments, will say that yes, there is a stable dead situation in Armenia.”
The Prime Minister assessed the criticism voiced against the Cabinet that the right hand of the Cabinet didn’t know what its left hand did as groundless criticism, claiming that the critics just didn’t know what coordination of the monetary, credit, tax and budget policy meant. Mr. Bagratyan said in that regard, “The Prime Minister himself doesn’t understand the difference between the monetary and credit policy and the tax and budget policy. The monetary and credit policy is always directed to fix demand. They try to fix demand by both the monetary and credit policy and the tax and budget policy. The Prime Minister hasn’t studied the modern economics.”
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In regard to the observation of the Prime Minister that the main goal of the Central Bank is to restrain inflation, the main goal of the Cabinet is stressing economic growth, Mr. Bagratyan observed, “The Prime Minister doesn’t understand that no one sets such goals now, no one thinks that his main objective is to restrain inflation, it was 10 years ago. Unfortunately, even our Constitution has been changed groundlessly in regard to that. The fact that the US budget deficit accounts for 12% of the GDP testifies to what I have said. The main US objective is not inflation, but dollar’s smooth devaluation, exporting-selling state bonds and encouraging export. It wouldn’t be bad, if the Prime Minister and his team (regardless of their age) understood that economics changed all the time and followed the evolution of international economic thought.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
