Former RA Prime Minister, former MP, economist Hrant Bagratyan made a note referring to the “falsification of statistical data” by the AMC. At the same time, he noted that his post can be considered as a crime report by RA law enforcement agencies. The full post is below.
“And now let’s start solving the other problem. What “games” did AVC use to falsify statistical data?
Services “games” 2005-2019.
About half of the falsifications were made by the RA AMC at the expense of services. Many have noticed that services in RA usually grow by double digits. Thus, in 2000-2019, the growth rate of services in RA was positive for 20 years in a row, of which 15 years it was double-digit, including 10 years of 15% and more, including 4 years of 20% and more. There are some problems in calculating the service chain index. The point is that their structure has changed over the years.
The latest structure (accommodation and public catering; culture, entertainment and recreation; education, health care and social services of the population; real estate activities; information and communication; transport; administrative and support activities; activities of tourist agencies; professional, scientific and technical activities; financial and insurance activities; other maintenance services), in our opinion, has been in use since 2010. At the beginning of the 90s, a completely different structure was used (computer-information service; activity related to real estate; general commercial activity related to the provision of activity to the market; subsoil and hydromet service; housing economy; communal economy and non-production types of population service; health care, physical culture and social security; culture and art; finance, insurance and pension security) and in 2004 were calculated in a completely different classification (domestic; passenger transport; post and telecommunications). ; education; tourism and sports; health resorts and banking institutions, etc.). The frequent changes in the methodology, which were also aimed at misleading the public by the AMC (in the end, it was always possible to provide comparable tables along with the change in the methodology), certainly make our job more difficult. deviations and problems of forming long dynamic series arise. However, the errors cannot be large.
Finally, there is a simple solution. We subtract industry (together with construction and energy), agriculture from GDP, and the service sector remains below (services + trade). In addition, in order to avoid possible serious deviations, we only delved into the analysis of statistical data from 2005-2019.
What did we get? In 2005-2019, the RA GDP increased 2.07 times. During that same period, services increased 4.5 times (calculated). Economic growth in this sector was mainly provided by the sub-sectors of “financial and insurance activities” and “culture, entertainment and leisure”. The first one has increased 11.3 times in the mentioned 15 years (Calculated: Statistical Yearbook of Armenia 2007, p. 327-348; Statistical Yearbook of Armenia 2009, p. 327-348; Statistical Yearbook of Armenia 2010, p. 350-371; Statistical Yearbook of Armenia 2015, p. 343- 370; Statistical Yearbook of Armenia, p. 347-374. Regarding the second, the data for 2005-2009 are missing. 17 times. In other words, the average annual growth here was 33% (see the sources mentioned above). As a result, the services sector (including trade) was 57.4% in 2018 (according to WB data, the services sector was 52.6% in 2018). , and according to the official data of the Republic of Armenia, 53.9%) instead of 12.6% in 1990. At the same time, the “Financial and insurance business” branch made up 8.9% of the GDP, and the “Culture, entertainment and leisure” branch – 9.9%.These are our calculations based on the initial (annual) database of AVC. AMC publishes such numbers. “financial and insurance activities” – 5.9% and “Culture, entertainment and recreation” – 6.0%. What does this mean? This means that the WCO publishes very high propaganda figures during the year and when summarizing it, then “corrects” them later, meaning that by and large the current falsifications must be “justified” by lowering the base data (see our February 2020 29’s Facebook post).
Another crime of the AVC is the falsification of data on services. Thus, the volume of services in 2005 was first presented as 333.8 billion drams (Statistical Yearbook of Armenia 2007, page 340) and then 362.8 billion drams (Statistical Yearbook of Armenia 2009, page 340). There is no explanation. The number of the same services in 2011 is announced as 865.5 billion drams (Statistical Yearbook of Armenia 2015, p. 357), and a year later it is 840 billion drams (Statistical Yearbook of Armenia 2015, p. 361). There is an “explanation” here. It is said that the methodology for calculating financial and insurance services has changed. And who will cover it? And why don’t you lower the GDP of 2011 and announce it separately? In general, it has become a habit to announce a high number, give presidents and prime ministers a chance to praise themselves, and then lower the hidden number. By the way, it is not always like that. A variety of forms of deception is characteristic of AVC. Thus, according to one source, the GDP in 2012 was 3997.6 billion drams (Statistical Yearbook of Armenia 2013, p. 227), according to another, 4000.7 (Statistical Yearbook of Armenia 2014, p. 223) and, finally, according to another source, 4265.2 (Statistical Yearbook of Armenia) 2016, p. 223). Such “inexplicable” changes in the GDP index allow us to make the relative weights of services according to the range to the right.
Along with that, the AMC shows “diversity”. For example, everywhere we see asterisks (especially regarding current statistics), explanations (for example, it is written everywhere: the numbers are preliminary and they remain preliminary for 2, 3, 5, 10 years, etc.). When publishing the macroeconomic figures of January 2020 (8.9% increase), the AMC gave a special place to services, 13.2%. You know, as if we were sitting and waiting for the coronavirus to “accelerate” economic growth. The Prime Minister did not miss the opportunity to make our people happy with the spirit of new statistical feats.
Thus, the services are the “weak” place of our AMC. They are growing always and everywhere, at least in double digits.
ps this post can be considered by RA law enforcement agencies as a crime report.
Continued.”
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