Armenian media fails to manipulate with Azerbaijan’s economic statistics

Despite all attempts to revive the post-pandemic economy of Armenia, which suffered a crushing military defeat in 2020, the government of the "reformers" failed to overcome the old barriers that have been preventing the country from fully integrating into the economic and infrastructure space of the region for three decades.

Armenia's non-involvement in the regional system of division of labor, its lack of access to transportation hubs and sources of affordable energy, and its stubborn unwillingness to normalize diplomatic, trade and economic relations with Türkiye and Azerbaijan, have for decades contributed to the flawed state of the "land of stones'" economy. The Armenian media and social networks try to compensate the lack of real results in the government by fudging statistics and employing various tricks.

A number of Armenian Internet resources have resorted to another attempt of fact distortion today, trying to compare the statistics on the tax revenues of Azerbaijan with the budget revenues of Armenia.

The Armenian media referred to the information published today in Azerbaijan about the increased dynamics of tax revenues to the state budget. In 2022, tax revenues to the state budget of Azerbaijan exceeded 15.541 billion manat ($ 9.142 billion), including non-oil revenues, which increased by 27.9 per cent, making almost 8.135 billion manat or $4.785 billion. Based on these data, the Armenian sources concluded that the non-oil-dollar of Armenia, whose budget revenue last year amounted to slightly more than $4.901 billion, exceeded the non-oil revenues of the Azerbaijani budget.

Azerbaijan is already accustomed to constant distortions of information by the Armenian media, in the incorrect comparison of statistical data. In fact, that is exactly what we are talking about in this case.

According to the preliminary operational data of the Azerbaijani Finance Ministry alone, the total state budget revenues in 2022 amounted to 30.660 billion manat or $18.035 billion, including non-oil revenues of 15.279 billion manat or $8.987 billion. After all, the non-oil revenues of the Azerbaijani budget includes not only the tax component, but also reveneus from the State Customs Committee and other state bodies. As for the share of revenues from the non-oil sector of the State Tax Service, it makes 53.2 per cent of total non-oil revenues of the budget - namely a little more than $4.785 billion.

For comparison, all revenues of the Armenian state budget in 2022 amounted to $4.901 billion, thus, only non-oil and gas revenues of the Azerbaijani budget exceed all revenues of the Armenian budget by 1.8 times.

The Armenian media incorrectly compared all the budget revenues of Armenia with non-oil tax revenues of Azerbaijan, apparently deliberately hiding the fact that apart from tax revenues, the non-oil revenues of Azerbaijan have other sources of income.

None of the journalists even bothered to analyze the simple figures. Apparently lying to their people has become good form for them.

Armenia, a country that has been living on diaspora and Russian handouts for decades, is trying to "prove" to us how developed it is. So why, being so developed, for all these years it has been left out of the major regional projects? Large companies used to come to Baku, but I have never seen Yerevan as a hub for any company.

Armenia is constantly begging the West and the US for more subsidies to the budget. Baku never asks for anything, because Azerbaijan has long turned into a country with a high average income for international organizations. Our country has repeatedly become a leader in the world rankings. What has Armenia achieved? - It is not clear. I have never heard that Armenia has ever made it to the top.

P.S. We are already used to constant distortions of information by the Armenian media.... Apparently, we need to teach them statistics and how to work with data.... Mercedes should be compared to BMW, at least to Audi, but not to Zaporozhets. Well, numbers are stubborn things...

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