Armenia National Assembly  adopted 2017 State Budget

ArmInfo. National Assembly of Armenia adopted the 2017 State Budget at December 8 session, with 83 voted for the Document, 24 agains and 1 neutral.

Earlier, presenting the Document, Vardan Aramyan, the Deputy Finance Minister, s mentioned that the key macroeconomic indices of the budget 2017 remain unchanged, Armenian Finance Minister Vardan Aramyan said at the Government's meeting on December 1. 

He said that following the parliamentary debates on the draft budget, the Armenian Government has decided to introduce some changes in the revenues and expenditures of the state budget. The changes in the revenues will be made due to the exchange rate fluctuations. As a result, the Government expects the revenues to decline by 11 mln AMD.   

Based on the submitted proposals, the budget expenditures will total nearly 16.1 bln AMD, 13 bln of which will be the VAT refunding. Other capital expenditures will decline by 1.1 bln AMD. 327.4 mln AMD reduction is due to the changes in gas tariffs. Following the optimization of the number of state non- commercial organizations, the Government expects expenditures to decline by 295 mln AMD.

The minister pointed out that the Government is going to increase some expenditures in the budget 2017:  the emergency fund of the Government will be increased by 8 bln AMD. The expenses on the Arpa-Sevan tunnel repair will be increased by 1.9 bln AMD; co-funding of target loans and grants - by 2.1 bln AMD; expenses of provision of housing in the disaster zone  - by 590 mln AMD.

The minister said that economic growth will make up 3.2%, deflator index - 1.7, and the deficit - 150.1 bln AMD. In 2017, the GDP deflator will make up about 101.7%. The budget 2017 revenues are expected to grow by 27 bln AMD to 1 210 bln AMD, and the expenditures are expected to decline by about 13 bln AMD to 1 360 bln AMD (22.4% revenues-to-GDP ratio). In the structure of revenues, tax revenues and state duties will amount to 1 135 bln AMD (versus 1 065 bln AMD in 2016).