July 6, 2011 - 14:19 AMT
Armenia ranked 2nd in Forbes list of World’s Worst Economies in 2011

The Forbes ranked Armenia 2nd (following Madagascar) in the list of the World’s Worst Economies in 2011.

The list includes 177 countries which are ranked according to three-year average statistics for gross domestic product growth and inflation (including the IMF’s 2012 estimates), plus GDP per capita and the current account balance, a measure of whether the country is importing more than it exports.

“At No. 2 is Armenia, whose economy shrank by 15% in 2009 as an expatriate-financed construction boom fizzled along with the world economy. With a mediocre growth forecast for the next few years, this landlocked former Soviet republic, dependent upon Russia and Iran for virtually all of its energy supplies, is struggling to keep up with the rest of the world. Per-capita GDP of $3,000 is less than a third of neighboring Turkey, and inflation is running at 7%. On top of that, Russia cut back on supplies of diamonds, hurting Armenia’s once-thriving diamond-processing industry,” the report says.

No. 4. Ukraine has rich farmland and generous mineral resources and could become a leading European economy - yet per-capita GDP trails far behind even countries like Serbia and Bulgaria, according to it.

Coming in 10th is Iran, which has 10% of the world’s proved reserves of oil according to the Energy Information Administration. The Islamic Republic’s economy, hobbled by insider control of vital industries, international sanctions and mismanagement, is growing at less than a third the world’s average rate. Per-capita GDP of $5,493 puts Iran far closer to war-torn Iraq than oil-rich peers like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.