By Anna Saghabalian
An independent expert on Armenia’s economy has strongly criticized the government-proposed budget for next year claiming that it completely ignores the innovative spheres of economy highly important for the country.Eduard Aghajanov says that providing zero investments in infrastructure development in such spheres as science and high technologies the government shows its reluctance to invest in the economy’s long-term development.
Talking to the media on Thursday the former National Statistics Service chief critical of the current government stopped short of overtly contending the officially posted 12 percent economic growth figure, but described it a low-quality economic growth.
“In simple economic relations the production of diamonds, tomato paste, copper is the index of the fourth of fifth grade country. By varying estimations of other economists, a third to half of our GDP growth is provided at the expense of transfers from abroad,” Aghajanov said.
While large capital investments continue to be made in the construction sphere, Aghajanov believes that “building restaurants and saunas does not promise a good future to the country’s economy.”