The parliament member from the opposition Armenian National Congress faction, former premier of Armenia, Hrant Bagratyan, has called on the government to change methodology of GDP calculation.
He said in the parliament today that at present 200 leading economists of the world have been drawing out a new methodology for calculation of the economy growth. But the Armenian government still is stemming from the old stereotypes. And yesterday's statement by the head of the parliamentary commission for economic issues, Vardan Ayvazyan, that the highest growth of GDP was fixed in 2007, is evidence of that, he said. In this context, Bagratyan recalled that in 1994, when the government was headed by him, the GDP growth doubled. This was a record-breaking indicator both for the CIS countries and the countries of the Eastern Europe. "That time, we reached victories over Azerbaijan, created a strong air defense system and at the same time, provided an unprecedented growth of economy", - Bagratyan said. He also added that providing of 13% growth of GDP of Armenia in 2007 was reached thanks to the two factors - the sale of the "ArmenTel" company and the "VivaCell" company's entering the Armenian market.
Bagratyan recalled that for six years of prime minister Tigran Sargsyan's staying in office, 7% GDP growth was fixed in the country. "The economy grew by 7,2% in 2012, while deflator was reduced to 5%, and the inflation rates grew up to 6%", Bagratyan said. He called not to scare the incumbent president of the country which said that the share of taxes in GDP will grow from 16% up to 21%. "I am confident that the president will not be angry with you if you explain that we have managed to reach such an indicator both at the expense of the growth of taxes and decrease of the GDP growth",- Bagratyan said when applying to the parliamentary majority.