YEREVAN, May 10. /ARKA/. For 2018 and 19, Armenia is going to target higher economic growth, and even five per cent is quite possible for the country for the year 2018, Vardan Aramyan, Armenian finance minister, said in an interview with Emerging-europe.com.
“Both the external and internal environment plus our actions,” he said. “As far as the internal environment is concerned, there are two major dimensions: macro policy and micro-level policy. On the external level, I think this year is already showing some positive signs after Donald Trump’s win in the US We see a strong recovery in the commodity market.”
China, India and the South American countries, he said, are doing better than was planned previously. In 2016, Russia’s economy also stabilised and even the rouble is showing signs of appreciating.
As for internal factors, “the first one is our strong commitment to long-running macroeconomic stability”.
“As I said before, because of our prudent fiscal policy and the exit strategy, we are going to make a fiscal consolidation, which is a positive sign for ensuring macro stability,” Aramyan said. “This is the most important precondition for future investment.”
He also spoke about the country’s growing macroeconomic stability and predictability, as well as the reforms that are improving the business climate.
“We have also created a strategic centre, which is going to act as a think tank and driver of this reform by diagnosing what we have, cleaning up all kinds of unjustified impediments and designing a workable strategy and concrete plans for moving forward,” the minister said in his interview.
In the government budget for 2017, GDP growth is projected at 3.2%, while the World Bank forecasts an up-to-2.7-percent growth, the International Monetary Fund 2.9%, the United Nations Organization up to 2.5%, Fitch 2.1%, the Eurasian Development Bank 2.9% and the Asian Development Bank 2.2%. -0—-
