Armenia is an aging country and without a pension reform, it will not be able to pay pension to the future pensioners, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said at the 3rd annual pension forum, Friday.
At pension age people often face a poverty problem, the prime minister said. "The major problem of the old pension system is that the citizens cannot know in what situation will be the country when they reach the pension age," he said. Sargsyan said that two presidents, three governments and four coalition parties have worked on the new pension system. Armenia is facing demographic problems, the country is aging amid growing life expectancy. He said that 32% of the population is below the poverty level, that is why the government postponed the pension reform for 4 years.
"The people are not sure if their accumulated funds will be preserved at the pensions funds. Meanwhile, there is also a risk that inflation will reach a level that the funds will decrease instead of increasing," the prime minister said.
To recall, the voluntary accumulative pension system was introduced in Armenia on Jan 1 2011. The system became compulsory starting Jan 1 2014, which sparked public outrage. Armenian Constitutional Court's decision of January 24 suspended some provisions of the Law on the Accumulative Pension until the Court considers its constitutionality on Mar 28 2014.
Experts say that with introduction of the system, the shadow in the employment field has grown.