YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. Inflation is one of the most important challenges for the Armenian government, lawmaker Gevorg Papoyan said in parliament.

Papoyan, the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Fiscal and Budgetary Affairs, said at the 2023 state budget debates that the best way to neutralize inflation would be the creation of jobs and increase of salaries.

“At this moment inflation in Armenia is around 9,5%. But, for example, looking at the inflation levels in our neighboring countries: Turkey has 85,5% inflation, Iran has 52,2%, Azerbaijan has 13,6%, Georgia has 10,6%. Armenia has the lowest inflation,” Papoyan said.

Speaking about inflation in EEU countries, the lawmaker said that Kazakhstan has 18,8% inflation, Kyrgyzstan 15,4%, Belarus 15,2%, and Russia 12,6%. “Again we see that our inflation is the lowest,” he added.

Inflation is considerably higher in European countries too.

“Yes, we talk about inflation a lot and we say that it is our number one challenge. But at the same time, often we forget that inflation is a global phenomenon, and it doesn’t only pertain to Armenia, furthermore in many cases it pertains a lot less to Armenia than to all our neighbors, or to countries who have certain similarities with us,” Papoyan added.

In the 9 months of 2022, the average salary in Armenia grew 13,4%, reaching 225,500 drams. Papoyan said the growth of average salary happened in faster pace than the inflation.