{"id":96243,"date":"2016-03-22T09:49:26","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T09:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/2016\/03\/22\/244366\/"},"modified":"2024-12-15T13:22:47","modified_gmt":"2024-12-15T13:22:47","slug":"moodys-expect-armenian-real-gdp-growth-to-decelerate-to-2-2-in-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/2016\/03\/22\/96243\/","title":{"rendered":"Moody\u2019s expect Armenian real GDP growth to decelerate to 2.2% in 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>YEREVAN, March 21. \/ARKA\/.<\/strong> Moody&#8217;s Investors Service said today that after benefiting from one-time boosting effects in the agriculture and mining sectors, it\u00a0 expect real GDP growth to decelerate to 2.2% in 2016 (from an estimated 3.0% in 2015) given the ongoing adverse external environment.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond this year, economic growth is unlikely to pick up rapidly given the latent and weak recovery expected in its main trading partner, Russia. As a result, the rating agency expects the upward debt trajectory to continue, with the debt-to-GDP to rise above 50% in 2017. Its\u00a0 baseline scenario does not foresee a reversal of this unfavorable trend in the coming years. Therefore, the strength of the government&#8217;s balance sheet will remain much weaker than in the past, leaving the country more vulnerable to the adverse impact of potential renewed economic shocks in the future, the agency said.<\/p>\n<p>According to Armenian government, the national debt in 2016 is expected to make 49.4 of the GDP, up from 48.3% in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Moody&#8217;s also said downside risks mainly relate to worsening economic situation in Russia, which would adversely hit Armenia&#8217;s economy more sharply than expected, mainly through the remittances, trade and investment channels, and which could prompt significant downward pressures on the local currency and the country&#8217;s foreign exchange reserves.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, further major downside risks stem from lower prices for Armenia&#8217;s major commodity export items (such as copper or metals), which would further affect the country&#8217;s terms of trade. Under this adverse macro-economic scenario, the budgetary and debt trajectory would likely worsen significantly and further erode the country&#8217;s fiscal strength.<\/p>\n<p>Major upside risks stem from a faster-than-expected improvement in the external environment and the related positive spill-over to the Armenian economy as well as rising prices for Armenia&#8217;s major commodity export items (such as copper or metals), which would lead to an improvement in the country&#8217;s terms of trade and would make foreign direct investment into Armenia&#8217;s commodity sector more attractive. Stronger- than-expected growth could pave the way for more favorable budgetary outcomes and general government debt trends.<\/p>\n<p>The Moody&#8217;s Investors Service\u00a0 has today downgraded Armenia&#8217;s long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt ratings to B1 from Ba3. Concurrently, Moody&#8217;s has changed the outlook to stable from negative.<\/p>\n<p>The Armenian government\u2019s projection for 2016 GDP growth is 2.2%. The World Bank&#8217;s forecats is 2.5%. -0-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moody&#8217;s Investors Service said today that after benefiting from one-time boosting effects in the agriculture and mining sectors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":173952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","tstyn_error":""},"categories":[12139,9216],"tags":[15837,12172,12344,15648],"class_list":{"0":"post-96243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy-en","8":"category-news","9":"tag-armenia-2","10":"tag-economy-en","11":"tag-gdp","12":"tag-moodys-2"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}