According to the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom, released by U.S. Heritage Foundation and "The Wall Street Journal," Armenia's economy, recognized as moderately free, ranked 36th among 180 countries in the world with economic freedom score 69.7. Its overall score was increased by 0.5 point compared with last year; however, this year as well freedom from corruption component, as one of 10 freedoms of the world rankings covering the index, is considerably deviated from its overall score.

The authors of the report have noted several components of 2011 Index of Economic Freedom world rankings of Armenia's economy to be highly corrupt (property rights, business freedom, trade freedom, investment freedom). Demands for bribes by government officials are routine. Government-connected businesses hold monopolies on the importation of numerous vital products. The expert analysts have also mentioned the enlarged government spending, particularly emphasizing that public debt has increased dramatically and is approaching 50 percent of GDP.

With a score of 75.2, Estonia is the leading economy in the post-Soviet area in its level of economic freedom, which ranks the 14th in 2011 Index of Economic Freedom World Rankings. Georgia with 70.4 score raked 29th and is mostly free, Azerbaijan ranked 92nd with a score of 59.7 and is considered to be mostly unfree. So is Russia, which is 143rd in the index with a score of 50.5.

The 2011 Index of Economic Freedom measures ten components of economic freedom, assigning a grade in each using a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 represents the maximum freedom. The ten component scores are then averaged to give an overall economic freedom score for each country. The ten components of economic freedom are: business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government spending, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption, labor freedom.

For full information on the index of economic freedom please visit The Heritage Foundation website, and for information on Armenia at http://www.heritage.org/Index/Country/Armenia webpage.