ArmInfo. Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan urged the Cabinet to submit the draft budget 2017 to the Parliament in lay terms. He recalled that discussions on the Budget-2017 will start at the parliamentary commission on October 31 and stressed that the budgets of the sectors must be based on the government program. In particular, it is necessary to present in lay terms the approaches and principles of the budgets per sector to the parliamentarians and the public.
The prime minister charged the ministers to present the expenses envisaged in their sectors along with the anticipated results and the terms of their implementation, so that the parliamentarians could see "the goal and the expediency of the expenses envisaged."
The Government approved the draft Budget 2017on September 29. The prime minister said the Budget 2017 will be tough. "The key principle set in the next year's budget is sustainable tax-budget policy and debt stability", the Finance Minister stated presenting the document. According to him during 2014-2015 rather high level of state deficit was registered in Armenia-4.8%. This year the deficit will most likely reach 5.9%, he noted adding that this is the main reason of debt formation. "As the result of this, within two years, in 2014-2015 debt increased from 43.7% to 54.4% by the end of this year", Aramyan stated. Consequently, the Minister noted that in the future more conservative policy should be conducted not to allow further growth of debt. "Considering this we have been relatively conservative when calculating expenses and the state budget expenditures are planned at 1 trillion 360 billion drams. In such case budget deficit in 2017 will be within 2.8%, which is almost two-fold lower than the current year's indicator", the Minister stated noting that budget expenditures will total about 1 trillion 444 billion drams at the year end 2016. Vardan Aramyan noted that due to administrative mechanisms additional tax revenues are expected next year, as a result revenues will total 1 trillion 210 billion drams.
According to him, economic growth in Armenia in year-end 2017 is forecasted 3.2%, amid deflator index 1.7%. The Minister noted that the growth is moderate but everything should be considered in comparison, particularly, this year most likely economic growth will be around 2.4%. Economy growth will be ensured due to a number of fields, particularly 5% growth is expected in industrial field, 4%-in agriculture, no growth is expected in construction sector in 2017 and around 2% growth is expected in services.
Aramyan stated that the inflation is planned within 4% (+1.5%) and stressed that the Ministry will coordinate its policy with the CBA in order to ensure macroeconomic stability.