ArmInfo. In Armenia's external debt ($ 5.5 billion as of January 1, 2018), the arrears for multi-country credit programs dominate - 66.2% or $ 3.6 billion, followed by debt on bilateral loan programs - 17.5% or $ 958.9 million and investments of non-residents in Armenian Eurobonds - 15,4% or $ 844.9 million. This is evidenced by the data of the National Statistical Service of Armenia.
In the structure of Armenia's external debt, 32.9% or $ 1.808 billion is concentrated on loans from the World Bank (WB: IDA - $ 1.132 billion and IBRD - $ 676.1 million), 12% or $ 659.3 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), 7.4% or $ 404.2 million from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 4.3% or $ 237.03 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB). For loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the debt is $ 23.6 million or 0.4% of Armenia's external debt, and from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) - $ 66.4 million or 1.2%. Among them, the largest growth for the year 2017 was provided by EIB - by 50.8%, after which the rate was followed by ADB - 28.8% and EBRD - by 15.3%. The increase in other multilateral credit programs is much more modest: IFAD - 4,5%, WB - 3,8%. IMF recorded a decline in investment by 1.9%. The investments of non-residents in Armenian Eurobonds declined by 6.6% in 2017, while their investments in Armenian dram government bonds increased by 21%.
On bilateral credit programs, the largest amounts of debt appear in KfW (Germany) and JICA (Japan) - respectively $ 295.9 million and $ 238.5 million, or 5.4% and 4.3% of Armenia's external debt. The share of loans from France in the foreign debt of Armenia is 2.2% or $ 122.05 million, and from Russia 4.6% or $ 252.6 million. And it is for loans from Russia and France that the largest growth was registered 4.5 times in 2017 and 53.7%, respectively, with an increase in loans from KfW by 47.7% and a decrease in loans from JICA by 0.4%.
In the annual context (2017 to 2016), Armenia's external debt increased by 14.3%, in the structure of which the debt under multilateral credit programs increased by 12.5%, and by bilateral - by 53.1%.
In 2017, loans were attracted for a total of $ 693.7 million, repaid by $ 145.3 million, interest payments were made for $ 77.6 million. The lion's share of loans was received in the IV quarter - $ 478.3 million. In the annual section (2017 to 2016), the volume of loans increased by 12% repayments - by 18.4%, and interest payments, on the contrary, decreased by 5.7 times. Only for the IV quarter of 2017 the volume of attracted loans increased 4.5 times, repayments - 2 times, and interest payments - by 58.7%.
The specific debt load per capita reached $ 2.3 thousand by January 1, 2018, of which over $ 1.8 thousand comes from external debt. The growth of this indicator is due to the continuing ascent of the general public debt, including external debt, at the same time the population is decreasing. Thus, according to statistical data, as of January 1, 2018, 2.973 million citizens live in Armenia, compared to 3.274 million for the same date in 2011 (when the specific debt load per capita was $ 1.2 thousand, of which $ 1.1 thousand was from external debt).
The degree of coverage of external debt with gold and foreign exchange reserves decreased in 2017 from 45.9% to 42.1% against the backdrop of a significant prevalence of foreign debt growth over the growth of reserves - 14.6% against 4.5%. The share of national debt in Armenia's GDP increased in 2017 to 58.9% from 56.6% in 2016.
According to the World Bank's forecast updated in January 2018, the GDP growth of Armenia in 2018 will be 3.8% with the acceleration to 4% in 2019. According to the forecast of the Central Bank of Armenia updated in February 2018, GDP growth in 2018 will be 4.7-5.8%, in 2019 - 4.5-5.9%, in 2020 - 4.4-6%. The state budget of the Republic of Armenia for 2018 laid the GDP growth by 4.5%.
