 crisis 2009 the world s woes reach armenia the year of 2009 was a year full of ordeals for armenia s economy bringing the boisterous growth of the past 10 years to a jarring end armenia has not managed to avoid the influence of the world economic crisis which revealed a weakness in the economy that some had warned against but none heeded primarily focusing on the precarious balance from growth generated by nonsustainable sources ie mining construction a 16percent economic decline was registered in armenia during 11 months of 2009 as compared with the same period last year december is expected to produce slightly less than a one percent increase yield a 15 percent decline for the year financial expert bagrat asatryan former head of the central bank in armenia 1990s and lecturer of economy at yerevan state university says that the economic decline is more severe if the gross domestic product gdp is expressed in dollars last year the gdp of armenia was 12 billion this year it will be about 8 billion which means that the economic decline will be about 30 percent asatryan says most loans are taken in dollars and exports are largely conducted on a dollar ratio the government of armenia developed an anticrisis program to confront the economic crisis that paralyzed the economy of armenia as prime minister of armenia tigran sargsyan explains the essence of this program is the following to essentially increase the expenditures directed at infrastructures to improve the atmosphere for small and mediumsized business to aid those companies which have temporary difficulties conditioned by the negative impact of the world contraction the state of the market the government turned to foreign funds as part of its crisis management which resulted in tripling the foreign debt of armenia because the state debt of the country was 37 percent last year it was 13 percent currently the foreign debt of armenia totals 36 billion moreover as aristomene varoudakis chairman of word bank s yerevan office estimates in 2011 the foreign debt of armenia will reach 50 percent of the country s gdp a troubling figure that some economists fear could lead to insolvency in 2009 the main reason for the economic decline was the dependence of the country s economy on several sectors mining two major and several minor mining plants stopped working as a result of crisis and construction volumes of construction were reduced by 384 percent in januarynovember 2009 as compared with the same period in 2008 and in spite of the government s intentions to diversify the economy of the country these two sectors were also paid attention to in spring the government made a decision to underwrite the construction industry by more than 50 million and it assigned funds to the mining sector from loans included in the loans secured to strengthen the economy nevertheless as financier asatryan believes the steps made by the government within the framework of the anticrisis course were not productive because there are systemic problems in the country the system oligopoly and corruption are among the systemic problems the essence of oligarchy is that it hinders the normal development of an economy and corruption simply kills the economy asatryan says as a consequence the most evident fall in 2009 was registered in the sphere of social maintenance where the number of the poor increased by 90000 three percent more as compared with last year and the number of the officially registered unemployed grew by more than 11 percent at the end of 2008 and during the first two months of 2009 the dollardram exchange rate was continuing to be stable contrary to the international tendency where the dollar was getting stronger but on march 3 central bank of armenia switched to a floating exchange rate sparking black tuesday a day on which the dram dollar fell from 300 to 360 nienke oomes former resident representative of the international monetary fund imf touched upon this issue with an earlier this month saying that she had been campaigning for a floating rate since january and if heeded could have saved armenia 700 million in foreign reserves export growth determined by dollar evaluation however was not registered in armenia even though the government simplified the processes of export for example lifting the prohibition of exporting fish products crayfish and cheese from armenia into russia in effect since 2007 the index of armenia s export within 11 months of 2009 was decreased by 374 percent totaling 624 million  