Economist says price hike leads to impoverishment of Armenian citizens

When people's incomes do not increase, especially the rise in food prices in Armenia leads to the impoverishment of people, Economist Suren Parsyan told Armenian media.

He made the remark referring to the inflation, which continues at a high rate in Armenia, Caliber.Az reports.

"The year 2022 was inflationary in all respects, we had internal and external causes of inflation. The external cause was that the global economy was shaken by the exit from the coronavirus crisis, as well as the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and rising energy and fertiliser prices significantly increased food prices in the world market. It is no coincidence that, according to UN analysis, the number of undernourished people in Armenia has increased by about 80,000. This indicates that Armenia's economy and population have not remained aloof from global trends, and the rise in food prices has led to the undernourishment of people and a further decline in incomes.

According to calculations in the first half of this year, a 5.5 per cent decline was recorded in the agricultural sector. In other words, we have not produced enough food to curb this trend of global inflation. If we could produce a sufficient amount of agricultural products, inflation in January-August would have been 8-9 per cent instead of 13.5 per cent", Suren Parsyan noted referring to the internal causes of inflation.