NOV. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s economy shrunk by 2.6% in the third quarter of the year, the country’s statistics agency said, confirming the poor economic sentiment in the country. In the third quarter of 2015 Armenia’s economy had grown by over 3%. Armenia is reliant on Russia which is suffering from a harsh economic downturn, linked to a fall in oil prices that has tipped it into recession.

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NOV. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s economy is virtually broken and needs major reform if it is going to survive, the country’s new PM Karen Karapetyan told Bloomberg in an interview.

Parachuted into the job in September after a series of crises pushed trust and credibility in the previous PM to near breaking point, Mr Karapetyan is the former Gazprom executive and former mayor of Yerevan, who President Serzh Sargsyan has tasked with transforming the Armenian economy.

Corruption and the dominance of a handful of well-connected oligarchs, who control most of the lucrative import businesses, need to be countered, Mr Karapetyan said.

“We’re proposing the most rapid change that’s possible,” he said. “We will create an even, competitive, level- playing field.”

And the ruling Republican party needs to do something fairly radical if it is going to have any chance of holding on to parliament after an election in May. In July this year, hundreds of young Armenians clashed with police in support of a group of gunmen who had captured a police station, highlighting frustration with the government.

In the interview, Mr Karapetyan also said that he wanted to cut government spending to halve the state deficit, a difficult objective if you also need to win votes.

“We also have external debt growing faster than the GDP growth and growing faster than revenues,’’ he said.

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