YEREVAN, March 24 /ARKA/. The amount of Armenia’s state debt is not a threat, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told lawmakers today.
“I would like to assure you that external public debt servicing is laid on institutional bases, and the repayment mechanism is planned for the years ahead. It is provided for both by the mid-term spending and is also taken into account in the new short-term one,” he said.
Pashinyan assured that there is no threat to Armenia, as the country’s economy will be growing.
“Housing prices will not fall, but will grow; budget revenues will not fall, but will rise. This year we are going to collect at least 40 billion drams more in revenue. And economic activity figures show that we are going to increase budget revenues,’ he said.
According to the premier, the fight against corruption and informal economy is instrumental in collecting more revenue. At the same time, he admitted that certain risks still exist, but they are global in nature and are associated with world crises.
“The model we are constructing now will be more resistant to external shocks,” said Pashinyan.
According to the Ministry of Finance, Armenia’s overall public debt grew by 0.41% or $28.1 million from late December 2018 to $6.951 billion at the end of January, 2019. The government’s debt at the end of January 2019 stood at $6.400.1 billion, an increase of $27.2 million, of which $4.996.1 billion was its external debt, an increase of $13.3 million. T
he government’s domestic debt stood at $1.403.9 billion, an increase of $13.9 million. The debt of the Central Bank at the end of January stood at $550.9 million, an increase of $0.9 million. -0-. ($1 – 486.15 drams).—0–
