Armenian government unable to attract investments

The economic situation in Armenia remains extremely difficult, and the Armenian media openly write about this. The Armenian experts have ceased to assess positively the future of the Armenian economy – now they speak about alarming indicators of the growing external debt, inflation, corruption and emigration.

Earlier in the year, Deputy Chairman of the Heritage party Armen Martirosyan noted that Armenia’s foreign debt is nearing to $6 billion, adding that this figure exceeds 60 percent of the country’s GDP. This was a signal that Armenia may end up in default at any time.

The data by the National Statistics Service of Armenia show that the investment rate in Armenia was negative in the first quarter of 2017 – it made up -7,536 million drams. This means that Armenia is facing a serious outflow of capital.

Moreover, the Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan now speaks about promised investments with less enthusiasm, and his economic program seems having failed.

“The fact that the external debt has exceeded $6 billion shows that Armenia’s economy is not just stagnating, but it is in a deep crisis,” a Ukrainian expert told Day.az.

Alexander Okhrimenko added that the current state of the Armenian economy is very poor, and the problem is that it will not change in a positive direction unless the regime changes its policy towards Azerbaijan.

“We cannot speak about prospects of development of the Armenian economy while Armenia remains in political isolation because of the unresolved NagornoKarabakh conflict,” Okhrimenko said. “Because of its stubborn policy, Armenia is not able to join economic and transport projects, to improve the investment climate.”

The expert believes that if the ruling regime of Armenia does not change its policy towards Azerbaijan, the country will remain in a state of socio-economic crisis.

Because of the NagornoKarabakh conflict, Armenia has no economic relations and transport links with Azerbaijan and Turkey. There are also difficulties in relations with Georgia that separates Armenia from its main economic partner – Russia. Thus, Armenia has turned into the black sheep of the region.

Today, the economy of the country remains critical, demonstrating unbelievably low indexes every year. Descending economy, high poverty and increasing outflow of people are the pure realities in Armenia, and the country’s government cannot develop any effective program to change the doleful situation.