Monday, May 26 2014 11:35
Head of Central Bank: The structure of reserves of Armenia is proportional to the structure of external debt of the state
ArmInfo. The structure of reserves of Armenia is proportional to the structure of external debt of the state, the head of Armenia's Central Bank, Artur Javadyan, said during today's parliamentary discussions on state budget 2013 fulfillment, when replying to a deputy Nikol Pashinyan's question, that last year was unprecedented in the context of the external debt service - $861 million was repaid.
Pashinyan said that the next peak will be in 2020. Stemming from it, he said that it would be expedient to fix more flexible tendencies of growth of payments, as sharp growth of the volumes of the state debt service may negatively affect the economic situation. Javadyan agreed that there are really the peak moments, but the state takes everything into account and will be able to repay all the debts, He also emphasized that 2013 ended with an unprecedentedly high level of external reserves.
For his part, Chief Treasurer of Armenia Atom Janjugazyan pointed out that this was due to Armenia's decision to start early repayment of the Russian loan worth 500 mln USD received in 2009.
In response to Javadyan's remark, Pashinyan said that actually a decision has been taken to postpone the peak to 2020, otherwise it would have fallen on 2014-2015. "The impression is that you are guided by the principle "after me, the deluge". 861 mln USD is over 30% of the state budget. It is an unprecedented figure to serve the national debt", said Pashinyan.
Javadyan said that there can be no political decision on putting off the debt burden till 2020. The thing is that there were some concerns with the economic growth in 2014-15. "Our decision has purely economic reasons. If we failed to decide on early repayment of the Russian loan, we would have heavy burden after 2019", said Javadyan.
To note, according to Atom Janjugazyan, the Armenian state budget 2013 was fulfilled with a 71.5 bln AMD deficit. In 2013 the economic growth made up 3.5% versus the targeted 6.2%. He said that the 12-month inflation made up 5.6%. Revenues rose by 13.2%, and spending - by 13.6%. The actual revenues of the state budget 2013 amounted to some 1071.4 bln AMD (up 13.2% versus 2012). The targeted indicator of tax revenues and state duties was completely met.
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