Our previous survey asked whether the economic crisis is over, will be over soon, or will not be over in the near future.
Out of the participants who responded, 80 percent think the economic crisis will not be over in the near future.  Almost 12 percent think it will be over soon, and about 8.5 percent think the crisis is over.
According to official statistics, there was a 7.2 percent increase in GDP between the months of January-April when compared to the same period last year.  From a purely statistical standpoint, if the Armenian economy maintains this growth rate, it will reach pre-crisis levels by the beginning of 2012 -- i.e. the same rate it had in the beginning of 2008.   
In the early 1990s, the economy declined by 40 percent.  It is difficult to say that the high annual growth rate Armenia sustained since 2002, which allowed GDP to reach its 2008-levels, was sufficient to quell Armenia’s economic woes.  Even years of double-digit growth did not solve the population’s basic and general issues.  Needless to say, two years after the economic crisis, recovery has been slow. Even if Armenia enjoys continued and stable growth, visible positive changes will take many years before they became evident.  Perhaps that is what a large portion of the 80 percent who were skeptical meant when they responded to the survey.
But there could also be other reasons for the pessimism.  Conditions during economic crises should force those responsible for economic policy to act boldly and sharply, even if they often contradict the interests of a certain segment of society.  Such policies should have been adopted perhaps before the crisis, but the economic downturn has made their necessity even more critical.  
Have the necessary reforms truly been implemented over the past two years?  Were the underlying issues hampering economic developments addressed: monopolies, political patronage, and the collusion of business and government?
The answers to these questions are probably behind much of the skepticism of our survey’s respondents to any positive economic change in the near future.
Economic reforms are needed continuously, even in developed countries.  But they are especially needed during a crisis: foreign loans and waiting for a global recovery will not ensure our economic recovery or more stable development.