PM: Armenia posts 4.8% economic growth in 1st halfyear of 2016

PanARMENIAN.Net - Despite the past months’ socio-economic and security-related problems, Armenia’s economy has secured an essential growth against 2015, Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan said today (August 4), summing up the past two quarters’ official statistics.

“In January-June 2016, we secured a 4.4% economic growth, the economic activity index up 4.8% against the same period last year,” he said at the cabinet meeting, Tert.am reports.

The premier attributed the deficit in the foreign trade balance to the increasing exports (vs lower imports). He added that despite lower domestic consumption, the economic growth was largely due to foreign trade. “And that implies a qualitatively new economic growth. Instead of domestic consumption, we are now switching over to a manufacturing- and export-related domestic growth,” he added.

Admitting that the government has considerable work to do to meet the existing challenges, the premier called for stronger government efforts to improve the economic indexes.

He asked all responsible government institutions to outline the problems requiring urgent solutions in their upcoming reports.