Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 28
Trend:
Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan has admitted that the Armenian economy is like a dried, unprocessed field.
Karapetyan, talking to local media, said that 2018 will be more difficult year for Armenia than 2017.
"This year, we did not lay many necessary bases for further growth, for example, compared to 2017, we increased capital expenditures by 70 percent," he said.
Speaking about poverty reduction, the Prime Minister stated that he does not expect improvement in the next two years.
According to the latest official statistics, the poverty level in Armenia in 2015 was 29.8 percent. The total number of poor people in Armenia was 900,000 people, 310,000 of which are very poor, and extremely poor - 60,000 people.
Furthermore, Armenian media reports that the state debt was less than $1.1 billion in 2003, $1.5 billion in 2008, $3 billion in 2009, and now it is $6.4 billion. That is, every citizen of Armenia “owes” the foreign lenders about $2,150.