Economist Tatul Manaseryan, adviser to the Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia, believes that if domestic and Diaspora resources are properly used, Armenia will see economic growth next year exceeding the government target of 1.2 percent.

So far this year Armenia has seen an 18.3 percent decline. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have predicted that Armenia’s contraction will have reached 15.6 by year’s end, indicating a “growth” that decreases the pace of decline.

A leading international lending institution positively assesses the “anti-crisis” action of the Armenian government, but points out that different wrong steps and approaches had made possible a drastic decline of the economy in 2009.

Talking to media on Thursday International Monetary Fund (IMF) resident representative in Yerevan Nienke Oomes presented the fund’s forecasts for the region for 2010 and said that they expect Armenia to end 2009 with a 15.5 percent economic decline.

The draft 2010 state budget that the opposition has already branded as “a budget of resignation” reduces spending in different sectors of the economy, which, however, does not discourage the ministers in charge of these spheres.

Next year’s budget calls for an expenditure of a total of 859 billion drams (about $2.23 billion), which is by 75 billion drams (about $195 million) less than the budget revenue pattern that had been planned for the current year and by 21 billion drams (about $55 million) less than this year’s planned budgetary expenditure.

A group of International Monetary Fund (IMF) executive directors have said Armenia is one of the countries most affected by the fallout of the global economic crisis. At the same time, they commended the anti-crisis policies carried out by the Armenian authorities.

“Armenia has been severely hit by the global crisis, with real GDP expected to decline by about 15 percent in 2009. Armenia has encountered difficulties connected with the reduction of remittances from abroad, falling foreign investments and, like in many other countries, because of falling tax revenues,” said Ambroise Fayolle, a member of the IMF executive directors’ board that was the key speaker at a press conference Monday at the conclusion of the group’s visit to Armenia.