YEREVAN, December 24. /ARKA/. Some 56% of the 1,066 Yerevan residents surveyed by Gallup International between December 9 and 16 think the dollar's surge will strike hard at their families' welfare.

Aram Navasardyan, director of Gallup International Association office in Armenia, speaking Wednesday at a news conference, said 21% of the respondents think the surge 'is most likely to have adverse impact on their families' welfare, while 11% of the respondents expected no impacts and 3% found it difficult to answer the question.

As for the economy, as a whole, 71% think the mounting dollar will affect severely the economy, 23% don't rule out that impact will be negative, 2% hope there will be no effect, 1% expect absolutely no effect and 4% found it difficult to answer the question.

Fever at Armenia’s forex market began on November 24, when the dollar surged 16.6 percentage points to 435 drams hitting its record high in eight years.

After the dollar hit a new record high on December 17, jumping 36.86 percentage points against the national currency to 527.20 drams, it shed 30.2 percentage points on the next day to 497 drams and the dram started recovering gradually thanks to the measures taken by the central bank and the government, though now it is sinking again. Today the dollar traded at 461.10 drams. ----0---