YEREVAN, January 10. /TASS/. Russians relocating to Armenia in 2022 have helped the country’s gross domestic product to nearly double what the government projected, or by an estimated 13%, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a news conference on Tuesday.

The forecast was for 7% growth, he said.

"GDP results will be finalized in the near future, and we estimate it will be close to 12.5%-13%. Obviously, the role of people that relocated from the Russian Federation to Armenia is very large. We had forecast economic growth of 7% for 2022 before the events you are aware of, but it was more than that, which makes us very happy," he said.

He didn’t name the number of people that came to Armenia during the year, but said they included people with dual citizenship.

"Very many Russian nationals that came to Armenia are also citizens of our country. These people could have gone to different countries but they chose Armenia, which is very important," he said.