YEREVAN, July 15. /ARKA/. Armenia’s total public debt is projected to make AMD 5 trillion in late 2023 or 58% of the gross domestic product (GDP), Finance Minister Tigran Khachatryan said at a meeting of the parliamentary standing committee on financial-credit and budgetary issues July 13.
He said the government has earmarked 255 billion drams of its resources to repay the public debt and will also attract loans to that end. He said the government will also issue bonds to raise proceeds for repayment of its debt next year. In 2023, overall 260 billion drams will be allocated for servicing the state debt.
Armenia’s total public debt stood at about $9.6 million in late May 2022, having grown by $132.6 million from the previous month, according to the numbers, released by the National Statistical Committee (NSC).
On December 31, 2021, the country’s total public debt was about $9.3 billion. If calculated in Armenian drams, the overall public debt increased by about 24.7 billion drams from late April, 2022 to 4 trillion 307 billion drams.
According to the NSC, of the total public debt about $6.6 billion were the external debt of the government, which grew by $7.5 million from late April 2022, while domestic debt in late May 2022 increased by $124.8 million to about $3.1 billion.
In Armenian drams the external debt decreased by 20.6 billion to 2 trillion 936 billion drams, while the domestic debt increased by 45.3 billion drams to about 1.4 billion drams.
The government’s external debt decreased by $10.6 million to about $6.1 billion as of late May 2022. In dram equivalent, the government’s debt decreased by 27.1 billion drams to 2 trillion 709 billion drams. The debt of the Central Bank increased by about $18.4 million to $505.1 million.
Of the domestic debt, about $2.8 billion (an increase of $104.7 million) were owed to resident holders of government bonds. Some $235.2 million were owed to holders of the government’s Eurobonds (an increase of $11.875 million). ($1 – 411.84 drams). -0-
