YEREVAN, June 30, /ARKA/. A senior member of the Armenian parliament said today the economic situation will have stabilized this year. Speaking at a news conference, Vartan Bostanjian, a deputy chairman of a parliament committee on economic issues, said the economy last year was in the state of coma. According to him, the economy is not going to suffer a similar drastic downturn any more.
According to official statistics, Armenia’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose 8.8 percent in the first five months of 2010 compared with the same period of the previous year. Officials had previously forecast 1.2 percent growth this year after GDP contracted by over 14 percent in 2009.
The construction and industrial sectors grew by 12.5 (108.8 billion Drams) and 12.0 percent (305.1 billion Drams) respectively in the first five months of the year. In nominal terms, GDP grew to 1.0 trillion drams ($2.7 billion). According to Bostanjian, the economic growth will be driven by construction, industry, mining and IT sectors. ($1 – 368.11 Drams). -0-
