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3-4 YEARS LEFT FOR THE «CAUCASIAN TIGER»

Economy

In some 3-4 years Armenia will not have a chance to be proud of its economic progress. This was the prediction made by Armenian and foreign specialists during the presentation of the 2005 report titled «Economic Development of Armenia».

In order to have constant economic progress there must be institutional reforms in Armenia, otherwise the country will not repeat its phenomenon, said Roger Robinson, representative of the World Bank in Armenia. He invites attention to the fact that if several branches of economy have marked constant progress throughout the past years, the same cannot be said about the tax sphere. There are spheres where there has been no progress at all, Mr. Robinson says bringing as an example the investigations carried out by the World Bank in Armenia together with the Euro Bank. In other words, Mr. Robinson tried to prove that it is easy to make reforms when everything is so bad.

The representative of the World Bank found is difficult to mention the name of someone who would be able to carry out institutional reforms. He said that he has worked with the members of the RA Government and that the Government is quite stable.

The report prepared by the Armenian-European center for economic policy and law consultation outlined the stable development of the economy of Armenia. What is especially impressive is that Armenia is the second among 181 countries by its Gross Domestic Product (14%). Besides, if Armenia and the EU countries preserve the average annual growth of the last five years (12.2% and 1.8%), in 19 years Armenia will reach the EU average index by GDP per person.

So, the analysis of the report shows that Armenia competes with the countries which have oil and gas resources. President of the Central Bank Tigran Sargsyan was also pleased with the report. He claimed that the high tempo of economic development will be preserved as the country has a potential which will be preserved for the coming three years.

Nevertheless, representative of the World Bank Roger Robinson warned that the figures of economic development won't be preserved for long, and unless the strategy is revised, there may be no progress at all.