YEREVAN, May 13. /ARKA/. The year 2010 was a period of stable rehabilitation of Armenian economy, said Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan in the parliament hearings on the report of state budget on Friday.
“The most significant result of 2010 is that the implemented anti-crisis events in 2009-2010 gave their results in 2010 which can be characterized as stable rehabilitation. We continued to work in the frames of simple and understandable program”, said Sargsyan.
In particular, the infrastructure was significantly improved due to large-scale investments, improvement of business environment and creation of more favorable conditions for small and medium businesses, as well as stimulation of certain programs which will bring to the increase of diversification level of Armenian economy.
Presenting macroeconomic indicators, Sargsyan said that GDP growth was 2.1% instead of planned 1.2%. He mentioned GDP growth of 10.5% in industry, 13,6% – in processing sphere, 19.1% -mining and 4.5% – services.
In 2010 significant growth of export indicators was recorded, on the account of which foreign trade balance increased by about 1.2%. In its result, export rates prevailed import rates.
It is a positive tendency which should be maintained in Armenia the next three years for the reduction of budget deficit and gain the planned indicators. Budget deficit in 2010 significantly reduced making 5% vs. 7.7% in 2009. It allows to expect that from the point of view of serving the state debt and provision of macroeconomic indictors, Armenia will appear in more favorable positions.
Income of state debt in 2010 was 780 billion drams which exceeds the indicators of 2009 by 13% and the budget expenditures exceeded the indicator of 2009 by about 3%.
“It is an important indicator for us as in 2009 we attracted large amounts of credits for financing the budget expenditures. In 2010, the expenses were implemented mainly on the account of own entries and reduction of deficit and we could increase our expenses by 3%”, said Sargsyan.
At the end of 2010, the level of inflation was 9.4% which was conditioned by two main factors: 2.4% – on the account of international prices for the main food products and raw-material, and 5% – on the account of high prices of agricultural products due to abrupt decline in this sphere.
Among the implemented activities in 2010, Sargsyan mentioned the implementation of large-scale programs on rehabilitation of infrastructures, development of Internet and computerization of schools, large-scale construction programs in earthquake zone, construction of apartments for young families, improvement of business environment, facilitation of registration procedure of enterprises and introduction of electronic tax reports, exception of control checks in small and medium enterprises and introduction of tax privileges. In the frames of the program on the development of seed growing, stock seeds of wheat were imported to the country. ($1 – 372.92 drams). –0–
