May 6, 2009 - 19:12 AMT
Short economic recession to be the best scenario for Armenia
Short economic recession will be the best scenario for Armenia, Manouk Yergnyan, Chairman of Economy and Values research centre told journalists today. Mr. Yergyan finds it very difficult to make predictions on crisis impact. He singled out three scenarios for further development of global financial-economic crisis.

According to the first, most optimistic scenario, economy will recover only at the end of the current year.
The basic scenario, according to Mr. Yergyan, predicts continuation of economic crisis for the coming 3-4 years. "That means, after a year of crisis, 3-4 years will be needed for full recovery," he said.

The third scenario does not allow for any prediction since this is really a global crisis with peculiarities of its own.
In this connection, Mr. Yergnyan added that Armenia will hardly manage to ensure high paces of annual economic growth. Summing up, he noted that "Short economic recession will be the best scenario for Armenia."

In January-March 2009, Armenia recorded economic recession of 6.1% in comparison with the same period of last year.