Another fiction by Sargsyan: Population to increase by million

By Azernews

By Rashid Shirinov

Armenia's President Serzh Sargsyan announced that the number of country’s population will reach 4 million in 2040 “thanks to a sharp improvement of the demographic situation”.

Sargsyan made the remark while addressing the first meeting of the newly elected Parliament, while many began to wonder how Sargsyan is going to achieve the goal.

The official statistics show that the permanent population of Armenia is currently even under 3 million, while non-official figures suggest that the figure is hardly close to 2 million. Since the independence of Armenia in 1991, the population has decreased by almost 640,000 people.

The figures of the National Statistical Service of Armenia published on April 1 show that the permanent population of the country decreased by 12,900 people since early 2017 as compared to the last year, and by 4,600 compared to the beginning of 2016.

There should be positive trends in the country in order to achieve a million-growth of population in 23 years. However, the current demographic situation in Armenia is disappointing – the birth rate is decreasing and people leave abroad.

The outflow of people mainly means that they cannot find a decent job in Armenia. The current volume of unemployment exceeds 18 percent of able-to-work population in Armenia, which is the highest indicator among the CIS. Some sources state that nearly half of the country's population live in poverty, on less than $2 a day.

Moreover, the birth rate for the first 3 months of this year has decreased by 6.5 percent as compared to the data of 2016, while the mortality rate has grown by 3.8 percent. Due to the social and economic problems in the country, people in Armenia do not want or financially cannot afford to have children.

The country is also losing its young population. The data of the National Statistical Service show that about 35,000 schoolchildren left Armenia over the past six years. As a result, many classes and sometimes school are becoming empty in the country.

Thus, the plan of Sargsyan to have a 4-million population in Armenia by 2040 is obviously doomed to fail, as the authorities fail to create appropriate living conditions in their poor country.