To the bottom
Yesterday RA National Statistical Service concluded initial (urgently collected) macroeconomic indices for January-October 2016. To say that they are bothering, will mean saying nothing.
Economic Activity Index (EAI) in the period of January-October of ongoing year, as compared to the same period of the previous year, is 100.4. This means, that throughout the first ten months EAI has grown by 0.4% only. On a monthly basis the snapshot is even more disappointing: on October 2016, as compared to October 2015 EAI has decreased by 7.8%, and, as compared to September 2016—by 18.7%.
However, it’s worth touching upon 0.4% of EAI. Throughout the year this has been the lowest index. In the period of the first months EAI temp was rather high and it reached 6% throughout January-April. After that the temp started to weaken and on the basis of 10 months it already approaches to zero. However, this is not all. The 0.4% of January-October 2016 is the lowest index not only in the ongoing year, but also from the year of introducing that index—2011.
It should be noted that RA National Statistical Service suspended monthly calculation of GDP from November 2011, instead as monthly compact index describing economy it started to calculate and publish EAI (GDP index now is calculated only by quarter and yearly frequency).
EAI on a 6-year basis is introduced in the Charter 2—from January 2011 to October 2016. As we may see, in the period of existence of EAI the highest index was recorded in early 2013 (in January—9.3%, January-February—9%). And the highest index, as stated, is recorded presently—0.4%.
This shows real condition. This is what the Prime Minister was touching upon while stating that the condition of economy is rather bad.Methodologically calculation of EAI and GDP is different (e.g. as compared to GDP index, EAI describes change of volumes of issuing commodities and services in economy, and not change of the added value), however, values of GDP growth and EAI don’t greatly differ, and by EAI one may have general view of economic growth. 2.2% economic growth was anticipated by the budget for this year. However, judging from these indices, by the end of this year growth may be lower.
What is EAI slowdown conditioned by? In his speech former Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan slightly touched upon its reasons, stating that those speaking of activity reduction forget about the April war and July developments, which had a negative impact on GDP. There is another curious circumstance in these indices as well. It turns out that official statistics, as compared to the previous one, doesn’t “change and fix” figures and introduces bitter reality. In this regard it should be stated that during the meeting with Delegation from Statistics Austria headed by Konrad Pesendorfer on November 10, PM Karen Karapetyan stated that an issue has been set before RA National Statistical Service of being maximally objective and independent, as for provision of public trust reliability of information sources and baseline data is necessary. Maybe the authorities really understood that to solve the issues, first and foremost, it’s necessary to accept their existence.
By Babken Tunyan
