Monday, October 3 2016 13:53

ArmInfo. The state debt of Armenia increased 8% in Jan-Aug 2016 to $5.5 billion (2.6 trillion drams), as both foreign and domestic debt. By preliminary data of the Finance Ministry of Armenia provided to ArmInfo by the National Statistics Service, the foreign debt grew 5.2% for 8 months of 2016 to $4.5 billion (2.2 trillion drams) amid 23.8% growth of the domestic debt to $943 million (447.7 billion drams). On year over year basis, foreign debt grew 9.8% and domestic ones - 37.6%.  As a result, the state debt grew 14.6%.

The government accounts for $4.04 billion or 90% of total foreign debt.  The Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) borrowed the remaining $497 million or 10%.   Government's foreign debt increased 5.2% for Jan- Aug 2016 (versus 9.1% a year ago), with that of CBA growing 4.3% (versus 8.6% a yea before). The foreign debt of the government and CBA grew 12.2% and 4% year over year, respectively.

Government bonds account for 91.1% of total internal state debt in Jan- Aug 2015 (from previous 87%) or $859.4million (408 billion drams), with the absolute indicator growing 38.7% year-over-year and 27.5% for Jan-Aug 2016 alone. Then go Armenian Eurobonds - $76.6 million or 36.4 billion drams accounting for 8.1% (from 13%) of total internal state debt. The absolute indicator grew 4.9% y- o-y amid 21.8% decline for Jan-Aug of 2016. The guarantees account for the remaining 0.8% or $3.3 million of total, amid zeroed commercial loans (since Nov 2015).

Debt burden per capita in Armenia has exceeded $1.8 thousand as of Sept 1 2016, with foreign debt accounting for $1.5 thousand ($550 in 2009) of total, as foreign debt keeps growing amid high rates of migration. In fact, taking into account the real scales of migration, the foreign debt burden per capita is much higher (by statistics, population of Armenia totaled 2.995 million versus 3.006million a year ago and 3.266 million five years ago).  The coverage of foreign debt by gold and foreign exchange reserves fell from 41.1% to 35.6% for first half of 2016, amid 5% growth of the foreign debt and 11% decline of reserves.  Experts forecast further growth of the foreign debt by 2017. Afterwards, certain decline is anticipated.

As of Jan 1 2016, the state debt of Armenia totaled 2.5 trillion drams or $5.1 billion (versus 2.1 trillion in 2014 and 1.9 trillion in 2013). The foreign debt accounted for 2.1 trillion drams or $4.3 billion in total state debt (versus 1.8 trillion in 2014 and 1.6 trillion in 2013). The internal debt accounted for 368.4bln drams or $761.5 bln. Gold and currency reserves in 2015 totaled $1.8bln.  The coverage of foreign debt by gold and foreign exchange reserves made up 41.1% by 2016, exceeding the indicator of 2014 by 39.3% and yielding to the level of 2013 by 57.7%.

The result of this, according to ArmInfo's analysts, is that in 2013 amid growth  of gold and foreign exchange reserves by 27.8% (to $2.3 bln) rates of foreign debt growth were not tangible (5% to $3.9 bln), after which in 2014 amid decline of gold and foreign exchange reserves by 34.8% (to $1.5 bln) foreign debt increased by 13.7% (to $3.8 bln) and in 2015 both reserves and foreign debt demonstrated upward trend.  Thus, in 2015 gold and foreign exchange reserves increased by 20% and 19% respectively.