MP: No economic growth expected in Armenian this year

Armenian pro-opposition MP Tadevos Avetisyan has said that there will be no economic growth in Armenia this year.

“This year, the Armenian authorities do not promise significant economic growth, as last year. I think the reason is that they took into account the poor performance of last year. Almost half of the planned major capital expenditures in the first 9 months were not implemented, this is very alarming,” he said during an interview with the Armenian newspaper Hraparak, commenting on the draft state budget of Armenia for 2024, Caliber.Az reports.

"The second important circumstance is that, despite the deepening of social problems caused by inflation, there is no real growth in indicators in the social sphere: neither an increase in pensions nor minimum wages nor even an increase in poverty benefits is provided, is not planned. There is only a certain increase in the planned sphere of social protection, and this is probably the problem of housing Karabakh Armenians,” the MP says.

“This is a general picture of a meaningless budget that is inadequate to the existing situation. The budget is accompanied by promises, but, unfortunately, reality has nothing to do with these promises. They [authorities] said that we are not raising pensions and benefits, we are building infrastructure, making capital investments to create new opportunities. However, in fact, they promise and do not fulfil," Avetisyan concluded.