TertAm   Armenia's economy may have more gains if the country's major assets are not concentrated in the hands of just a few people, the head of IMF office in Yerevan has said.

Speaking today at a discussion devoted to the major challenges in Armenia's economy, Guillermo Tolosa said that Armenia does not fully use its potential, failing to involve highly qualified resources from the Diaspora.

"Armenia has to use the Diaspora's resources to its own benefits. That will impart momentum to the development of the country's economy," he said.

Tolosa also spoke of Armenia's economic growth in the early 2000s, saying that it was mostly conditioned by increased activeness in the construction sector.

"Construction essentially contributed to the economic growth. The fact leads some analysts and experts to the thought that Armenia's economic growth was like a balloon dependant on large-scale construction activities," he noted.

Another obstacle, according to him, is that the country does not maintain good terms with some of its neighbors. Besides, he added, Armenia is situated far from the United States, European Union, China and India and has no oil or natural gas resources.

"The existing problems and oligopolies date their origins back to the early 1990s," the head of OSCE Office in Yerevan, Ambasador, Sergey Kapinos, added.

He said Armenia's economy remains dependent on private transfers and imports but the core problem, according to him, was ineffective governance.

"Programs envisaging systemic changes in governance may change the situation in the country," he stressed.