The Armenian economy continues to feel the negative impact of the pandemic, and the economic indicators of July are conditioned by several factors at once.
Artak Manukyan, a member of the "My Step" faction of the National Assembly, said this in a conversation with "Lurer". Particularly affected are countries where tourism has a significant development trend. The lack of people and, consequently, lack of financial flows has affected also other sectors since May 2020.
To remind - According to the data published by the Statistical Committee, the economic activity index in July of this year decreased by 10.2% as compared to the same period of the previous year. Armenia's economy is interconnected with the Russian market. Moscow suffered significant losses at the beginning of the year due to the sharp drop in oil prices. Together with the pandemic, it led to a decrease in the purchasing power of the population, which could not but affect the volume of goods exported from Armenia. This bunch complements the Teghut factor.
In July, construction and trade turnover fell considerably. However, the decline in the services sector is deeper - 21.6%. Why such a picture was formed when there are no restrictions on economic activity? Citizens have started to spend less, says economist Haykaz Fanyan. This year tens of thousands of our compatriots did not go abroad for work. Therefore, the flow of money to the republic stopped.
"We are talking about quite serious sums, about $ 1.5 billion", says Fanyan.
The volume of construction decreased by 19.5% in July. One reason for this is the underperformance of capital expenditures. However, the volumes can be restored from September. "Many businesses that were planning to expand their bandwidth are starting large-scale construction projects right now, at a time when they have come out of economic constraints", said Artak Manukyan, a member of the "My Step" faction.
Despite the economic downturn, the Armenian banking system remained stable and the Armenian dram did not fluctuate.
For 7 months of 2020, the economic activity index decreased by 5.7% compared to the same period last year.
By Arthur Khachatryan
