YEREVAN, October 27, /ARKA/. The global economic and financial crisis that hit virtually all countries although with differing severity, has affected the Armenian economy very hard, contrary to earlier forecasts of some experts. The double-digit economic growth, reported for several successive years, was replaced by a bigger double-digit GDP contraction.

For example, Armenian GDP grew by 13.2% in 2002, by 14% in 2003, by 10.5% in 2004, by 14% in 2005, by 13.4% in 2006 and by 13.7% in 2007. But the next year it contracted to 6.8%, while in the first nine months of 2009 the GDP collapsed by 18.3 percent. Reduced imports and exports have cut foreign trade.

According to a report of the State Revenue Committee, called ‘The Analysis of the Summarized Indices of the Monitoring of Biggest Taxpayers in Eight Months of 2009’, the volume of exports of 325 biggest companies in January-August totalled 120.2 billion Drams. Three companies, Zangezour Copper and Molybdenum Combine, RusAl foil producer and Pure Metal Plant accounted for 46.1 billion Drams of exports of the biggest companies. These three companies also accounted for 31.6% of the overall Armenian exports in Jan.-September, which totalled 146 billion Drams.

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