ArmInfo. By November 1, 2018, the Armenian state debt amounted to $ 6.7 billion (3.3 trillion AMD), slowing down the y-o-y growth rate from 12.5% to 6.3%, which was caused by a more significant slowdown in the growth of external debt - from 13.3% to 5.9 %, rather than domestic debt, from 9.1% to 8.3%. This is happening against the background of growing economic activity - 6% in January-October 2018 against the same period of 2017.
According to preliminary data of the RA Ministry of Finance provided by the National Statistics Service to ArmInfo, as of November 1 2018 foreign public debt amounted to $ 5.4 billion (2.6 trillion AMD) or 81%, and internal debt - $ 1.3 billion (649.7 billion AMD) or 19%.
In January-October 2017 alone, the state debt of Armenia grew by 6.8% due to the growth of foreign debt by 6.3% and the growth of internal debt by 9.1%. A year earlier, in January-October 2016, the growth rate of internal debt also outpaced the growth of foreign debt, but much more significantly - 39.6% and 5.3%, respectively, which increased the total public debt by 10.4%.
In the structure of foreign debt, 89% or $ 4.8 billion are the government's share, and the remaining 11% or $ 568.1 million - the Central Bank's share, against 86.3% and 13.7% a year earlier. Moreover, the external debt of the government accelerated the y-o-y growth slightly - from 8.9% to 9.1%, while the dynamics of the debt of the Central Bank changed from a 21.8% increase to a 6.5% decline. In January-October 2018 alone, the government's external debt declined by 2%, with the Central Bank's external debt falling by 5.6%, against a 2.3% and 20.4% growth respectively recorded in January-October 2017,.
In the structure of the internal state debt, government bonds dominate - 87.7% by November 2018 (against 88.9% a year earlier), reaching $ 1.2 billion or 569.8 billion AMD, with a slowdown in y-o-y growth of the absolute value from 15.5% to 9.1%, and in January-October of this year alone the increase was the same (9.1%). The Armenian Eurobonds follow next - $ 155.4 million or 75.5 billion AMD, the share of which increased from 10.4% to 11.6% over the year, with a slowdown in the y-o-y growth of the absolute value from 55% to 20.4%, but in January-October alone the increase was scanty (0.2%) . The rest is accounted for by guarantees - 0.7% or $ 9 million, unchanged both in y-o-y terms and in January-October (against a growth of 28.6% a year earlier).
To note, according to the World Bank forecasts updated this October, the share of the state debt of Armenia in GDP for 2018 is expected to be at the level of 56.6%, with a decrease to 55.4% in 2019, against the previously expected 58.6% and 58.3%, respectively.
To recall, in 2017 the national debt of Armenia increased by 15.3% to $ 6.8billion (3.3 trillion AMD) due to the growth of foreign debt by 14.6% - up to$ 5.5 billion (2.7 trillion AMD) and the growth of domestic debt by 18.2% - to $ 1.3 billion (619.5 billion AMD). This deepened the specific debt per capita burden up to $ 2.3 thousand by January 1, 2018, of which more than $ 1.8 thousand came from external debt, against $ 2 thousand and $ 1.6 thousand, respectively, by January 1, 2017. In 2017, the degree of foreign debt coverage with gold and foreign exchange reserves decreased from 45.9% to 39.6% against the background of a significant increase in external debt with a meager decline in reserves. The share of public debt in Armenia's GDP reached 58.8% by the end of 2017, up from 56.6% in 2016.