Ministry of Finance: In 2018, Armenia`s external borrowing will amount to $ 411 million.

ArmInfo. In 2018, Armenia's external borrowing will amount to $ 411 million. For servicing the state debt of Armenia, $ 307 million is planned for the next year. "Armenia is in good standing from the point of view of the effectiveness of public debt management from its international partners," Samvel Khanvelyan, the head of the department-deputy head of the Department of State Debt Management at the RA Ministry of Finance, said on December 25 presenting Armenia's external borrowing program for 2018.

According to Khanvelyan, $ 411 million, $ 99 million or 48 billion drams will be attracted for the purpose of implementing budget assistance programs, and $ 312 million or 151 billion AMD will be directed to targeted programs.

The bulk of the planned borrowing - $ 150mln will be spent on the implementation of energy programs, of which $ 114mln for the modernization program of the Armenian NPP. $ 73 million will be allocated for road construction, in particular $ 34 million for the implementation of the investment program for the North- South transport corridor. The financing of irrigation programs will amount to $ 34 million, $ 28 million will be raised for educational and social programs, $ 8 million for water supply and $ 20 million for other targeted programs.

In the structure of borrowings planned for 2018, 30.5% of the funds will be attracted from the Russian Federation ($ 125 million), 26.1% ($ 107 million) from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), 14.8% ($ 61 million) Bank of Reconstruction and Development, 12.9% or $ 425.5 million of funds expected from Germany, 4.3% ($ 18 million) from the European Investment Bank (EIB), 2.8% ($ 12 million) from France, 8.5% % - other funds of other creditors. The unused loan balance as of December 31, 2018 will be $ 1.5 billion.

Earlier, ArmInfo reported that in the budget for 2017 in the state debt line, the authors of the document fixed an indicator of $ 6.512 billion or 57.3% of GDP. However, by the end of 2017, Armenia's aggregate state debt, according to the budget message for 2018, will increase from the forecasted $ 6.813 billion (according to the results of 2016) to the forecasted $ 6.813 billion and will make 60.3% of GDP, instead of the indicator set in the "Budget-2017" $ 6.512 billion or 57.3% of GDP. Thus, over the year Armenia will increase the debt burden by $ 871 million. In 2016, $ 546.5 million was spent on servicing the government debt - repayment at interest rates and principal amount of loans, government bonds and other financial instruments, then this year the government will spend $ 586 million (at an estimated rate of US $ 475.36 others). According to the State Debt Strategy for 2018-2020, in 2018 it is planned to allocate $ 666 million for debt service, $ 710.7 million in 2019, and $ 1.37 billion for 2020. (at an estimated rate of 1 US dollar / 483.83 others). ArmInfo analysts believe that the growing external debt and high migration in Armenia increasingly deepen the specific debt burden per capita to $ 2.1 thousand by July 1, 2017, out of which $ 1.7 thousand comes from external debt. According to various estimates, by the end of 2017 this figure will be $ 2,240 and this is only taking into account official statistics on the number of the resident population of the country (2.9 million people).