One third of Armenians living in poverty

/AzerNews/

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

The Armenian government received a "bad" mark again as the National Statistics Service put in a report the poverty ratio of the country at 32 percent in 2013.

The report, jointly developed by Armenia's National Statistics Service and the World Bank, aimed to assess the changes in social conditions and living standards in Armenia from 2008 to 2013.

"According to the report, the total number of the poor among the country's resident population was 967,000 in 2013. Nearly 402,000 of them were very poor, while about 82,000 residents were recorded as extremely poor," Diana Martirosova, Chairman of the NSS's Department for the Investigation of the Households said presenting the results of the report titled Social Picture of Armenia and Poverty on November 18.

She went on to say that approximately one third of people in the post-Soviet state were poor in 2013 based on the report data. "It means that 32 percent of the population are poor, along with 13.3 percent very poor and 2.7 percent extremely poor."

London-based Global Finance Magazine, an essential source of global business and finance data, ranked Armenia 69 among 184 countries in terms of the poorest countries of 2013. The magazine described it as a country with a medium-low GDP per capita due to its $6 billion estimated GDP. Armenia emerged to be the poorest country in the South Caucasus region, being behind the 73rd Georgia and 102nd Azerbaijan. Congo-Kinshasa topped the list, while Qatar was shown as the world's richest country.

Martirosova said the overall level of the poverty in Armenia in 2013 exceeded the same index in 2008 by 4.4 percent. "The depth of poverty was 5.9 percent in 2013 compared to 5.1 percent in 2008, while the poverty severity was 1.7 percent against 1.4 percent rate in 2008." The poverty rate in the urban settlements of Armenia was 32.2 percent, as the total average of poor residents was 31.7 in rural areas, according to Martirosova.

The report was based on data, which was acquired in wake of the generalized survey on the living standards among 5184 households in 48 cities and 202 villages.

The Washington-based Borgen Project, a nonprofit organization that addresses poverty and hunger worldwide, said though Armenia’s GDP growth rate reached double digits in recent years, it is largely attributed to the widening of the poor-rich gap and uneven distribution of wealth. Areas of poverty in Armenia are mostly concentrated in rural areas and on its borders.

Poverty has always been a drawback in Armenia, since the country failed to overcome the problem due to its infertile economy and unbalanced state policy. Huge gap between the rich and poor residents is eliminating the middle class and creating an Asian type population in the small Caucasus country.