YEREVAN, November 16, /ARKA/. Andre Andonian, director-partner of McKinsey&Company (Germany) said last Saturday it will take Armenia a long time to get out of the financial and economic crisis.

In response to an ARKA question to describe the current state of the Armenian economy and its future prospects, he said the state of the Armenian economy will be depending to a great extent on how quickly the European economy gets back on track.

He said despite some cheering signs of the global economic recovery with improving macroeconomic indices McKinsey&Company is still cautious to claim that the global economy is completely out of recession.

According to him, this is true also in regard to India and China, although these two nations have reported growth, because their economic numbers are below now before the crisis level. “This is why we are talking about improvement and not about positive growth and changes,’ Andonian said.

He said also the economies of European countries which are closer to Armenia, are still weak and there are still serious risks.

He said McKinsey&Company polls monthly 1800 leading experts on major parameters, particularly, on the depth and duration of the crisis.

He said McKinsey&Company advises that Armenia and other European countries work out a flexible exit scenario which can be adapted while taking the country out of the crisis.

He also said it is desirable that the governments look at the current crisis as an opportunity to enforce radical structural and systemic changes and reforms. Armenian GDP dropped by 18.3% in January-September 2009. -0-