Rating-Agentur Expert RA GmbH (RAEX-Europe) expects Armenia’s economic growth rates to be solid at an average of around 3.5% in the next three years, as it points out in the recent report.

According to RAEX-Europe, this will be the result of improving regional conditions translating in higher exports, which will also be propelled by a better outlook on minerals’ prices, especially copper, Armenia’s main export product.


The agency notes that recent political turmoil in Armenia was well weathered by the economy as macroeconomic figures remained quite stable and so did the Armenian financial system. However, they still consider that this situation could potentially hurt foreign investment in the country.

“Even though [government and public] debt figures remain elevated as compared to its non-oil dependent peers, we expect this figure to decline further in the long-term perspective as the authorities start to implement a new fiscal framework which includes budget consolidation efforts and a new fiscal rule,” reads the report.

The agency considers the government debt structure to remain favorable in general terms: short-term debt accounts for 2.6% of total debt and floating interest representing 13.8% of total obligations. Although the amount of FX-denominated debt remains elevated at 81.8%, most of this debt is in concessional terms partially mitigating the credit and exchange rate risk for the country.

“Going forward, we expect the government of the newly appointed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to maintain stability before snap elections take place at the beginning of 2019,” says the RAEX-Europe report.

The agency underlined that in general, Armenia has a positive and highly credible monetary policy with an improved transmission mechanism despite the fact that high levels of dollarization could jeopardize the transmission of policy decision into the financial markets.