Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says the social situation in Armenia is complicating, but adds that the whole world is in the same situation.
During the Cabinet meeting today the PM said that the world is in an unprecedented high stage of inflation, and one can know about its reasons while getting acquainted with the news at any moment.
“And Armenia is still in a good situation in this sense, compared to many countries. And what is the policy of the government in this respect, it was seen in 2019 when the prices of food were increasing globally, but Armenia was one of the unique countries where the opposite was taking place, the prices of food were declining. Because we eliminated the artificial monopolies, and Armenia today is a free country in terms of imports and exports, and as a result of the measures taken, the prices of several important goods are not increasing in Armenia, and in fact will not increase, in some cases we have declines in prices. I hope we will have it also in the future”, the PM said.
He said they understand that they need to carry out a policy of mitigating the social issues, and added that they do this as much as possible, as much as the country’s budget allows which is formed at the expense of the taxes paid by everyone.
“And how we collected the taxes, the data of 2021, the most crisis year for us, show, when the state budget’s tax revenues have been overpassed by 147 billion drams than it was planned. And if we take into account the additional revenues received without legislative amendments, about 110 billion drams. In general, the tax revenues of our budget after 2018 increased by nearly 35%, as I promised during the peaceful, velvet, people’s Revolution”, the PM said.
He said that there are speculations that they are raising the salaries of law enforcement officers and are not increasing the pensions. “Yes, but two things must be taken into account. Firstly, it’s one thing to raise the salary of 500 people, 5000 people or even 20,000, but it’s completely another thing to raise the pension of 550 thousand or 600 thousand people. These are absolutely different budgetary expenditures, moreover, these expenditures are not one-time, they must be carried out forever. And we, of course, do everything possible to implement our pre-election promises and vital necessary decisions,” he added.
Speaking on economic issues, Pashinyan said: “I also want to speak about optimistic news. We must note that we have good grounds to maintain our economic activity. For example, with the data of the first 20 days of March against the same period of the previous year, the number of transactions recorded with point-of-sale machines in Armenia increased with 510,000, while turnover grew more than 60 billion drams. This certainly is not a fundamental indicator, but this is a positive signal which is connected to the fact that in 2022 we have a big flow of people into Armenia and this will create rather good economic effects.”
He added that in February Armenia recorded a record number of registered workplaces at 646,077 (10,3% increase against 2021 and 12,7% increase against 2019).
Average salary stood at 223,235 drams, which is a 9% increase against 2021 and 25,3% increase against 2019.
"But I must also say that, unfortunately, the socio-economic situation is not the biggest challenge facing our country.
Dear colleagues, dear compatriots,
You see what is happening in the world. What is happening in the world started with what happened to us, and what is happening today has and will have a direct impact on us.
We are at the most important crossroads in the history of the Third Republic, a point where the Armenian statehood has appeared more than once. And in order to be able to reach the desired culmination from that same historical point, we need unprecedented flexibility, a completely non-emotional state. We need new formulas of thinking. And we must take our ship, our boat in this stormy geopolitical ocean to a safe haven. And I'm sure we will do it, that's our historical mission," the Prime Minister concluded.
