Money flows out of Armenia
By Rashid Shirinov
The volume of investments made in Armenia drastically fell, while the figure is less than the volume of money leaving the country.
In the first half of 2016, the volume of foreign net direct investment made up 16.9 billion drams ($35.6 million), while this figure was 81.9 billion drams ($172.4 million) in the same period of last year, according to the data published by Armenian National Statistical Service.
Net direct investment is a balance of import and export of capital, and this means that in the first half of 2016 Armenia spent $35.6 million more investment than received.
The money were mainly exported to Russia – $58.6 million, offshore in Cyprus – $5 million, Luxembourg – $6.1 million, the Netherlands – $9 million, France – $2.1 million, and Lebanon – $1.7 million.
As for direct investment in Armenia, it has decreased by almost half compared to the same period of 2016. In the first six months, the volume of direct investment made up 16.5 billion drams ($34.8 million), while this figure was 30.7 billion ($64.7 million) for the same period of 2015.
The Armenian state budget, not surprisingly, also faced decrease this year. In the first seven months of the current year, revenues of the Armenian state budget made up approximately 633.4 billion drams ($1.33 billion), while the expenses were 717.2 billion drams ($1.51 billion), according to the official statistical data.
The revenues of Armenian state budget decreased by 2.2 billion drams ($4.64 million) or 0.3 percent compared to the same period of last year.
Thus, it is obvious that the public money in Armenia are misused by the government – while the money leave the country, majority of Armenians, thanks to the country’s authorities, have no choice but to live under sorrowful conditions.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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