ArmInfo. The budget of Armenia was executed in January-February 2019 with a surplus of 40.6 billion dram($ 82.8 million), with a y-o-y growth of 11-fold (in the same period of 2017, there was a deficit). According to the Statistics Committee of the Republic of Armenia, the budget revenues of Armenia improved the annual dynamics with a recovery from the 11.1% decline by 32.5% growth, which was also observed in terms of expenditures, but to a much smaller extent from 8.4% decline to a 3.4% rise.
The budget revenues amounted to 203.4 billion drams ($ 415.4 million) in January-February 2019, and expenses - 162.9 billion drams ($ 332.6 million).
In the structure of revenues, the share of taxes and duties decreased in y-o-y terms (January-February 2019 to the same period of 2018) - from 94% to 92.6%, in absolute terms increasing by 30.5% to 188.4 billion drams (against 12, 1% recession a year earlier).
In particular, the acceleration of y-o-y growth was recorded in terms of income from the state duty - from 11.4% to 12.8% - to 4.4 billion drams. Along with this, growth was maintained, but with a slowdown, income from value added tax - from 12.7% to 4.2% - to 77.5 billion drams, from income tax - from 15.7% to 13, 2% - to 65.1 billion drams, from customs duties - from 44.3% to 4.4% - to 11.9 billion drams, from turnover tax - from 73.3% to 38.5% - to 7.2 billion drams . For the rest of the taxes, unlike last year's dynamics, there was a decline in the reporting period, and the most significant: income tax - by 94.5%, payments for the use of natural resources and environmental conservation - by 91.8%, fixed payments - by 54.2%, excise tax - by 26.1%.
Against this background, in the structure of budget expenditures, expenditures on the purchase of goods and services came to an upward trend - from 16.9% decline by 45.7% growth - to 15.5 billion drams, expenditures for benefits and pensions - from 8.2 % decline by 12.7% growth - up to 66.4 billion drams. And salary expenditures, having kept their growth, slowed down the pace from 8.6% to 7.9%, making 19.3 billion drams. The interest payments on the state debt worsened the annual dynamics from 12.6% growth to 2.6% decline, making 11.6 billion drams, of which 6.1 billion - on external debt, with a slowdown in growth from 79.5% to 23.9 % The grants and subsidies for the reporting period recorded a decline of 21.1% and 15.1%, respectively, to 15.1 billion and 9.3 billion drams.
To note, the estimated exchange rate of dram on February 28, 2019 was 489.72 AMD / $ 1, and in January- February the average settlement rate of drams was 487.10 AMD / $ 1.