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Irina Davtyan says about 1 million peole have migrated from Armenia during the past 20 years.

According to the annual report of the United Nations (UN), Armenia has registered progress in human development, which, however, does not prevent Armenia from having high indexes of emigration.

In the independent report published by the UNDP (United Nations Development Program), Armenia is in the 84th place in the list of 182 countries in terms of human development. As compared to the previous year’s index, this year the index value of human development is improved in Armenia thanks to the increase in the index of per capita GDP (gross domestic product).

Nevertheless, Armenia remains a country of foreign migration and especially emigration, in case when, according to the UN Human Development (UNHD) annual report 2009 (this year dedicated to human mobility), the index of inner mobility of population in the world is a greater figure.

Irina Davtyan, deputy head of the Department on Migration Programs of the Migration Agency of Armenia, presenting the Human Development Report 2009 to journalists and international organizations in Armenia, stated that the index of foreign migration is rather high in Armenia.

“During the recent 20 years, up to a million people (or one third of the population) emigrated from Armenia. Human mobility from a developing country to a developed country is typical for our country. Two thirds of the emigrants leave for Russia, which is in the 71st place (higher than Armenia) in the human development list,” Davtyan explained.

Moreover, according to the Human Development Report 2009, the motivations for leaving Armenia are mainly of economic nature.

“Two in three emigrants mention absence of jobs or low wages as reasons for leaving Armenia,” Davtyan says.

Even though experts consider foreign migration to be something negative, it promotes the formation of GDP in Armenia. Before the world economic crisis, for example, remittances made up 20 percent of Armenia’s GDP.

Armenian migrants in their turn do a lot for the country they left for; for example, according to independent experts’ estimation, Armenian migrants in Russia created more than one million jobs during recent years.