Representatives of NA Standing Committees give speeches on Government Activity for 2022
The citizens’ greatest expectation on the Government activity is the ensuring of economic stable growth. In this regard, the most characterizing index is the growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) – 12.6%, which is 3.7 more than compared with the countries like us: the Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs Gevorg Papoyan said during the debate of the report on Implementation process and results of the Government Programme (2021-2026) for 2022 at the extraordinary sitting convened by the NA deputies’ initiative on April 18.
Touching upon the idea being speculated by the opposition, about the defeat, the end of the war like that, Gevorg Papoyan, mentioned that we can bring forth numerous reasons of the defeat. According to the co-rapporteur, in 2005, in 2006, in 2007 Armenia had double digit economic growth, but the economic growth of Azerbaijan was twice-three times more than of Armenia. For example, Azerbaijan recorded 28% growth, in 2006- 34.5%, in 2007 – 25.5%. During those years, Armenia registered a little more growth of 10%, but the world was in a high growth rate. “Here, this time we lost to Azerbaijan, and during this 30%-35% economic growth period Azerbaijan capitalized its resources and managed to transform to other resources in future and succeed with that. During these very years, Armenia should have very high economic growth and accumulate great capital that could be able to compete with Azerbaijan in future,” the Committee Chair expressed such opinion. According to him, in reality, our defeats began in the years 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, which some circles name brilliant period or double digit economic growth for the Republic of Armenia.
Speaking about economic indices of 2008-2017, Gevorg Papoyan documented that in 2008, the RA GDP was 11.66 billion USD, in 2017 – 11.53 billion USD. It was noted that instead of increasing in dollars, it decreased by 130 million dollars. “Here we lost the war. It means that during ten years our GDP decreased in dollars instead of growing,” the reporter added that in 2018 and in the period following it attempts were made to change the situation. It was mentioned that the GDP that was 11.53 billion USD in 2017, today is already 19.5 billion USD, it increased by 7.04 billion USD.
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According to Gevorg Papoyan, the purpose of voicing the economic indices recorded in different years is to show that the country had lost decades, which could not have their consequences in the battlefield, emigration and in case of the remaining indices.
In 2017-2022, the volume of the industrial product was grown almost by 50%, the construction volume – by about 30%, the trade- by about 68%-69%, and the service – by 80%.
Speaking about inflation, the MP noted that among such countries as ours, Armenia had been one of the countries having the lowest inflation. It was stated that in our all neighbor countries higher inflation was recorded. “In the world the average inflation was 8.7%, and according to the RA Statitical Service, in Armenia it reached to 8.6%,” Gevorg Papoyan documented and added that as a result of targeting policy of inflation, it reached to 5.4%, which is in the landmark that the National Assembly put before the Central Bank.
The Committee Chair affirmed that in 2022, the nominal salary with absolute value increased by 57.8 thousand AMD, but in reality the salary increased much more. Gevorg Papoyan clarified that by the results of 2022, the income tax interest rate was 21%, and according to the results of 2017, 2018 the average income tax was 25.2%. As a result, people paid 4.2% less tax in average for 2022 than – before.
According to Gevorg Papoyan, the opinion of the Committee majority on the Government activity for 2022 was positive.
“We can affirm that the Government succeeded at a progressive pace to implement all that was planned for 2022: we registered 12.6% economic growth instead of 7%. We had target that in 2026, the unemployment level should get 10% lower. During the year 2022, we have 2.5% decrease of unemployment from 15.5% to 13%, and if this rate goes on, we’ll reach our promise not in 2026, but earlier – in 2024 or in 2025.” The co-rapporteur, the Deputy Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs Babken Tunyan said during the debate of the Government performance for 2022.
The co-rapporteur mentioned that impressive indices were recorded in the spheres of education and health.
Babken Tunyan referred to the opposition colleagues’ observation that the economic growth does not depend on government, but it is a result of external factors. “How it happens that when the external factors are negative, for example, covid, then the power is to blame for the decline. At that time, they say, you have not governed well, the anti-crisis measures were not good, the anti-crisis fights is not effective, but when the results are positive, it appears to be the Government has nothing to do with it: it means automatically the positive effects would have come to our economy,” the co-rapporteur reversed. Accepting that external factors had essential importance on the economic growth index, the Committee Deputy Chair noted that the flow of the people and the capital to Armenia was conditioned by a number of factors: many factors were taken into account, beginning from business environment up to democracy, protection of human rights. “Our task is to do in a way that those businesses won’t go out of Armenia, and the Government makes huge efforts in that direction, huge work is done for keeping the imported capital and the qualified human workforce in Armenia. We observe this for increasing the potential of our economic growth as an opportunity,” Babken Tunyan said.
According to him, such impressive indices were recorded in the conditions, when we had border incidents and security situation. As the co-rapporteur stated, if we did not have those risks, the sound logic prompts how high rates of economic activeness we would have.
Babken Tunyan also spoke about the existing problems, noting that regarding the implementation capital costs there are still things to do. He also related to the inflation, as a consequence of which the consumer price index also increased.
Summing up, the co-rapporteur mentioned that he is hopeful that next year we’ll reach the goal of having better country in larger steps.
National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia
