In 1991, Armenia's last year as a Soviet republic, national income fell 12 percent from the previous year, and per capita gross national product ( GNP--see Glossary) was 4,920 rubles, just 68 percent of the national average for the Soviet Union. In large part because of the earthquake of 1988, the Azerbaijani blockade that began in 1989, and the collapse of the internal trading system of the Soviet Union, the Armenian economy of the early 1990s remained far below its 1980 production levels. In the first two years of independence (1992-93), inflation was extremely high, productivity and national income dropped dramatically, and the national budget ran large deficits.

Data as of March 1994