{"id":80142,"date":"2014-10-06T15:20:13","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T15:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/2014\/10\/06\/241570\/"},"modified":"2025-01-09T10:35:43","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T10:35:43","slug":"russian-remittances-to-armenia-continue-to-fall-amid-weakening-ruble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/2014\/10\/06\/80142\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian remittances to Armenia continue to fall amid weakening ruble"},"content":{"rendered":"

YEREVAN, October 6. \/ ARKA \/.<\/strong> The amount of remittances sent home by Armenian labor migrants from the Russian Federation is falling as Russian ruble’s free fall extends into new record-breaking territories. According to the Central Bank of Armenia, the amount of private remittances in August 2014 from Russia arriving through the banks for non-commercial purposes decreased by 7.7% from August 2013, to about $161.6 million.<\/p>\n

The downward trend has been observed for the third consecutive month. Thus, the amount of Russian money transfers to Armenia in June fell by 4.6%, by 6.6% in July and by 7.7% in August.<\/p>\n

A former head of the Central Bank of Armenia, Bagrat Asatryan, blames the drop on depreciating ruble that hit a new historical low today falling behind 40 rubles for a USD. In Armenia the Russian ruble lost 15% since the beginning of the year trading on October 6 at 10.27 drams, down from 12.26 drams at the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n

According to Central Bank data, the bulk of remittances sent to Armenia in the first eight months of 2014 – around 87%- came from Russia.<\/p>\n

In the meantime the aggregate private transfers to Armenia in August slashed by 5.8% from 2013 August to approximately $185.7 million. In July their amount was 4.4% down year-on-year.
\nRemittances along with foreign investments are a key factor of economic growth in the country. According to the Central Bank, in 2013 a total of $1.869.7 billion were remitted to Armenia, which made\u00a0 17.3% of the GDP.<\/p>\n

Asatryan says an average economic growth rate \u2013about 6-7%- must be backed by a 10-15% annual rise in remittances and investments. The decline in remittances in the first 8 months this year amounted to about 3%, which Asatryan says can cause a serious blow to the economy.<\/p>\n

The decline made many international financial institutions revise downward their forecasts about Armenian economy growth linking it with the slowdown in the Russian economy because of Western\u00a0\u00a0 sanctions.<\/p>\n

In particular, following a stronger than expected decline in net exports and slowing remittances in H1 2014, Moody\u2019s revised Armenia’s growth forecast down to 2.1% in 2014 and 2.3% in 2015 from 3.2% and 3.6%, respectively.\u00a0 The revised figures are based on Moody’s forecast for the Russian economy to contract by 1.0% in 2014, followed by stagnation in 2015.<\/p>\n

The IMF has also revised its forecast to 2.6% from earlier projection of 4.3%; The Asian Development Bank now forecasts a 3.8% growth, down from 4.8%. EBRR\u2019s revised forecast is 3% and the World Bank\u2019s forecast is 5%, by 0.2 percentage points down from the government\u2019s projection. -0-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The amount of remittances sent home by Armenian labor migrants from the Russian Federation is falling as Russian ruble’s free fall extends into new record-breaking territories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":156964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","tstyn_error":""},"categories":[12315,12139,12168,9216],"tags":[15837,12172,12146,13445],"class_list":["post-80142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-announces","category-economy-en","category-interviews","category-news","tag-armenia-2","tag-economy-en","tag-russia","tag-trasnfers"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t