The government of Armenia has approved the 2018 budget draft. Vardan Aramyan, the Minister of Finance, presented it to the Prime Minister at the Government session noting that the government has raised the index of economic growth in its predictions.
“By the 2017 budget, we fixed 3.2% economic growth, but the economic activity index, which is currently 5.5%, all the sectoral developments show that our economic growth will be within 4-4.8%.And on this basis, we have raised the current expectations of 4.3% this year. For the next year, we foresee 4.5% economic growth”.
According to Mr. Aramyan, there is no conversation about the sequestration at all: “International institutions, including credit institutions, have retained our rating on the background of the growing debt and even has not changed the prospect. Highly is estimated the scope that has been designed and implemented in 2017.”
According to the Minister of Finance, the funding of the defense sector has been increased in the budget of the next year. The minister also said that in 2018, they have planned to make 1 trillion 307 billion AMD revenues and budget revenues will increase by 100 billion, which will be at the expense of tax revenues.
As for the budget deficit, which will make 2.7% of the GDP, answering journalists’ questions Vardan Aramyan said after the government session, that it is possible to take a loan to cover it.
Lusine BUDAGHYAN
