Armenian PM assesses political speculations around migration as risky

YEREVAN, May 3. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said political speculations around migration processes in Armenia are risky.

“Migration is one of the most important issues. But political speculations abut this issue are risky,” Sargsyan said in the interview with Shant TV channel. 

He noted that as a tradition that comes since the Soviet Union, 50-80 thousand Armenians annually go to Russia for work. 

“But these people return to Armenia, thus while coming up with the numbers on migration each quarter or annually one should be very careful and take into account the fact that there are people who leave the country for work,” the head of Armenia’s government said. 

Sargsyan reminded that the greatest emigration flow from Armenia over the last 20 years was reported in 1990-1995. “This is quite understandable. That was significantly caused by quite tensed, crisis and collapse situation in Armenia,” he said.

The Prime Minister added that the emigration began to shrink in line with the improvement of socio-economic situation in the country, and the same situation is dominating in Armenia over the past 5 years. 

“As a whole, if we consider migration in a long term, we should see that there is a tendency for its slip. The rise in the number of emigrants was in 2009, and the causes were clear- crisis year. So far we record emigration decrease,” Sargsyan added. 

According to the data provided by the National Statistical Service, Armenia’s negative migration balance in the first quarter of 2012 rose to 28,098 people from 20,392 people in the first quarter of 2011. It said 350,301 people arrived in the country in January-March, of whom 186,393 were Armenian citizens. In the same time 378,399 people left Armenia, of whom 211,787 were Armenian citizens. —0-