Demographic crisis: 22,200 people left Armenia for good in 2016
By Rashid Shirinov
Within eight months of 2016, some 22,200 people left Armenia by air and never returned back, the newspaper Zhoghovurd wrote citing statistical data of the General Department of Civil Aviation of Armenia.
According to the data, since the beginning of the year, 671,637 people departed from the Zvartnots airport of the country, while only 650,147 returned. Likewise, 3,915 passengers left the country from the Shirak airport, but just 3,150 came back.
Desertification remains a challenge for Armenia, which is suffering high unemployment, corruption, constant decline in economical indicators and problem of low wages. The deplorable situation and lack of hope for the future pushes many, in particular youth to leave the country in search of better life.
According to the survey conducted by Armenian office of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, 42 percent of Armenians dream to leave the country forever.
The newly appointed Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan urged not to expect rapid changes in the critical economy of the country.
“The situation in our economy, frankly and directly speaking, is extremely difficult,” he acknowledged on September 14 in the course of the government hour in the Armenian Parliament. "We should not wait for fast changes. But we will signal which direction the economy will develop.”
The state debt of Armenia in late June 2016 made up $5,345 billion, according to official Armenian statistics. Hence, it increased by 5.3 percent from the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, the total national debt of Armenia amounted to $4,470 billion by the first half of 2016.
The volume of unemployment in the first quarter of 2016 made up 19.3 percent of able-to-work population in the country, and due to the wrong structure of national economy, new vacancies do not seem to come up soon. That means the Armenian population will continue suffering in their country. In such circumstances, the choice of 22,200 Armenians to leave the country for good seems to be the most logical decision.
Former Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan recently left the office, after for over two years drawing the country’s economy to a deadlock swamp. Just after Abrahamyan’s arrival, Armenian economy, managed by corrupt, criminal and oligarchic government, started to rapidly deteriorate, coming to a dead end eventually. As a logical conclusion, the Armenian government has also resigned.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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