"Fact" daily writes:
Experts attribute the positive economic indicators of the past year exclusively to the external factor, and the forecasts for the next year are, to put it mildly, not positive.
An increase in taxes and fees, inflation, which will contribute to the deterioration of the social condition of the citizens. Tadevos Avetisyan, MP of the NA faction, economist, says that the high economic growth of the previous two years was due to the influence of an external random factor, caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war and economic sanctions against Russia. :
"The impact of this factor has significantly decreased since the second quarter of this year, and, unfortunately, our pessimistic forecasts that were there, came true in full.
The indicator of economic activity has been significantly decreasing since the second quarter, and instead of the at least seven percent economic growth promised by these authorities, we will have an economic growth of about five percent.
That dampening factor accounts for a significant portion of that five percent increase.
The decrease in the rate of economic growth during the year also led to the fact that tax revenues were and continue to be significantly underachieved within the framework of about ten percent, and the state budget expenditures were also overall underachieved by an average of ten percent.
Unfortunately, we have to record that the significant underperformance in the ten months of this year related to the promised capital expenditures, that is, infrastructures with a long-term economic effect, construction, etc.
These are the facts, based on which the authorities of the day initially predicted a 5.6 percent growth in the next year's state budget, and two weeks later, when the state budget was to be finally approved, they lowered the economic growth rate to 5-5.1 percent.
Even 5.1 percent growth next year is highly problematic from a performance perspective because the trends we are already seeing now are quite pessimistic for next year.
Second, international financial and economic organizations, in particular the International Monetary Fund, predict even lower economic growth even in the best scenario, which is the basis of the state budget.
This is the reason why we have very modest indicators in next year's budget in terms of revenues, in addition to this, we have a factual record that there will be no increase in the minimum wage, social, poverty benefits and pensions next year.
But in fact, there are significant inflationary pressures next year, and even the Central Bank is predicting an average inflation within five percent.
Also, a change in the macroeconomic environment, including a decrease in foreign remittances, will bring significant risks of devaluation of the national currency and, consequently, inflation.
Add to that the tax burden on small and medium-sized businesses will increase significantly from January 1, the turnover tax rate will be doubled, it is also an inflationary factor, let's also add geopolitical dislocations, which are significant risks and can lead to increase in the price of essential, food safety products.
In the background of all this, real inflation will be present, so the conclusion is clear that next year our socially disadvantaged classes and groups will have a decrease in real purchasing power, figuratively speaking, they will live even worse than this year.
Pensions, benefits, the minimum wage do not increase, and inflation will actually lead to a decrease in real purchasing power.Avetisyan says in an interview with "Fact".
In one of the earlier conversations with us, he described the tax policy to be implemented by the current authorities in 2025 as "tax terror".
The government is taking this unpopular step because the economy, to put it mildly, is not in a good state.
The government of the day sees the most serious economic problems and also the suppression and promotion of economic activity arising from them, the fact that even in the case of the planned indicators of tax revenues, it is possible to have an underperformance, for this it has given an impetus to the appropriate steps in both directions.
One is an increase in the tax burden, and the second is manifestations of "tax terror". The targets are objectively vulnerable areas: micro-businesses, whose tax benefits are being eliminated, as well as small and medium-sized businesses.
We see that other big businesses have a narrow political interest, and there taxes are collected around the tables of so-called charity.
There is a large share of internal financing, both the new oligarchs of their heart and the big businesses that are already aligned with them abstains," our interlocutor notes.
It is clear that many people have no more expectations from the government and decision-makers.
In the case of economic growth, you should not rely on external factors. We always said that this positive background should be capitalized. "Hot" money came to Armenia, and now that effect is leaving our country with it, bringing with it additional difficulties.
Over the years, we have seen military escalations, actions of a military nature, threats from the neighboring countries with which these authorities are playing a fake peace agenda.
For example, failures could not go unnoticed. for example, when the enemy shoots at an enterprise opened with foreign investment, it is about Yeraskh, or the failed project of Armenian airlines through the public-private partnership "ANIF" fund, whose case has already reached international courts, and thus the ever-increasing risks of corruption, "tax terror" have led to the fact that this year we already have an "escape" of foreign direct investments from our country.
Even against the background of sustained high economic growth, more foreign direct investments left our country than came in. In other words, we have capital "flight" and a significant decrease in the inflow of foreign direct investments, which are serious negative indicators.
The external factor is weakening in a positive sense, investments, which should be the basis of the growth of the next economic phase, are decreasing instead of increasing, that is, there are no positive expectations, it will be a year of serious economic difficulties, not counting the growing risks of economic security, internal instability, persistent social problems deepening, why not, also the demographic problems that caused a new wave of emigration.
"These are all very negative and, unfortunately, real processes and trends. The main key formula is the following: we have authorities that make endless promises and behave contrary to them," Tadevos Avetisyan concludes.
Lusine Arakelyan
