Pension reforms in Armenia are aimed at the largest group of voters, pensioners, by keeping them drug dependent on a 5,000 AMD vote, said Armenia’s former prime minister, economist Hrant Bagratyan, while speaking to journalists today.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Proposing to tie pensions directly with the average salary, Bagratyan said that the “optimal” pension amount must be 50% of the country’s average salary; however, in Armenia it has dropped from 34% to 20%.<\/p>\n
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Bagratyan also made comparisons with the relationship between average salaries and pension amounts in neighboring countries:\u00a0<\/p>\n
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“In 1995, [monthly] pension payments were $5.70 [USD] in Armenia, $5 in Azerbaijan and $4 in Georgia. The average salary, respectively, was $17.40, $13 and $10. In 2010, the average salary became $286 in Armenia, $390 in Azerbaijan and $323 in Georgia, [while] pension payments were $60, $100 and $48 [respectively].”\u00a0 Saying that these indicators must be observed while taking into account the six-fold devaluation of Armenia’s currency, the dram, the former prime minister predicts that in Georgia’s case, the figures will increase drastically in the coming two months.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The other negative aspect of the reforms, in Bagratyan’s opinion, is that the domestic budget “under pressure from the oligarchs” received an additional burden: “If anyone wants to increase the amount of his future pension and decides to transfer to a monthly fund, for example, 5% of his salary, then matching that payment, according to the law, will be not the employer but the state,\u00a0 which has already established the state pension.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Bagratyan recalled that the initiative by the opposition group the Armenian National Congress proposes responsibility to be placed on the employer and not the state, to make those funds tax-free, and invest it all in Armenia, and not export the funds and products, as do the country’s major businesses today.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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