YEREVAN, OCTOBER 9, NOYAN TAPAN. By the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) 2008-2009, Armenia is in 97th place by competitiveness out of 134 countries - against 93rd place in 2007. The chairman of "Economy and Values" research center Manuk Hergian said at the October 9 press conference dedicated to the release of the report that it is the fourth year that Armenia has been included in GCR. In his words, GCR is an internationally recognized and authoritative annual report that compares, assesses and analyses the economic competition of various countries, aa well as the factors that affect their economic development. M. Hergian said that in a GCR, the countries are classified based on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), which is based on 12 pillars of competitiveness: macroeconomic stability, education, health, etc. According to the GCR 2008-2009, the three most competitive countries in the world are the U.S, Switzerland and Denmark. Among the CIS countries, Russia is the most competitive one, followed by Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. M. Hergian underlined that the index did not take into account the impacts of the international financial crisis as the data used by the report represent the annual indices of 2007. He noted that Armenia's competitive position has not undergone a notable change as compared with last year and continues to be at quite a low level. In his words, Armenia is now facing serious challenges related to raising the country's competitiveness, and in case of overcoming these challenges Armenia will be able to maintain high rates of economic growth. He said that at the present stage of development, Armenia's main challenges are related to development of the microeconomic bases of its competitiveness, however, the macroeconomic risks have also increased in the past year. It was mentioned that the primary prolems of the Armenian government are the elimination of the current shortcomimgs in the resource and commodity markets, and ensuring an institutional field aimed at a stable macroeconomic environment and business development.

---