YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 23, ARMENPRESS. The economic policy of Armenia in the past ten to twenty years has been situational, argues economic Bagrat Asatryan, a former president of the Central Bank.

He says that in the past decisions have been made based on certain situations.

“Now it is necessary for the new government to act in a systemic approach,” he said during a conference today in Yerevan.

“I commend the organization of this conference, it is a good opportunity for economic and financial experts to outline the problems and make concrete recommendations,” he said.

He said that the biggest expectation of this year is to ensure post-revolutionary stability, which exists. He said that positive movements are noticed in the crediting direction, with growth being documented.

“This is unprecedented for the situation that we have. We have more than 10% growth in loan investments, this means that the domestic market is positively reacting to the ongoing changes in the country. The government should seek to give a certain look to these positive trends with a systemic approach,” Asatryan said.

Speaking about the decline of the economic activity index, Asatryan said it is associated with domestic and foreign factors.

“The foreign background is negative, fluctuations happen periodically. Let’s observe the main type of raw materials – cooper, gold, that is being exported. We see that copper prices have significantly dropped in recent years. The other factor is associated with Russia. Economically, Armenia has very strict ties with Russia, and the situation happening there is leaving its impact on our country. A decline of economic growth trends exists there on the background of the sanctions, the Russian ruble is depreciating. Of course this should have impacted our economic,” he said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan