YEREVAN, AUGUST 28, NOYAN TAPAN. In the opinion of the RA Minister of Finance Tigran Davtian, the RA National Statistical Service's data, according to which a recession of 18.5% was recorded in Armenia in the first seven months of 2009, was quite predictable. "We forecast that this index will start improving in September and October and the recession will ease in late 2009," T. Davtian told reporters on August 28. In his words, some stabilization tendencies were observed in the economy and the above mentioned index will improve. "There are forecasts that it may fluctuate between 10 and 15 percent. Besides, we forecast that next year the economy will start recovering gradually and there may be an economic growth of 1-1.5% in 2010". The minister informed those present that 38.6 billion drams (about 102.6 million USD) of the Russian loan has already been invested in the Armenian economy. According to him, on June 12, 2009, Russia transferred 500 million USD of the stabilization loan to the account of the Central Bank of Armenia, with the loan being provided at a LIBOR + 3% interest rate for supporting the country's economy in conditions of the crisis. He said that the Armenian government has decided to allocate a considerable part of the loan to real economy. "A decision was made to allocate 120 billion drams (about 319.1 million USD) of this sum for the promotion and development of the economy, while 38.6 billion drams has already been invested in economy," he explained.

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