Thursday, August 22 2019 17:29

ArmInfo.The dynamics of public debt suggests that risks are manageable. Minister of Finance Atom Janjughazyan announced this today in a conversation with reporters  after the meeting.

According to the minister, there are no unforeseen or unexpected  negative changes in Armenia. And the process of fluctuations in the  direction of increasing or decreasing the level of public debt, as  Janjughazyan pointed out, is permanently recorded during the year. .  "In one month there may be a growth trend, in another - a decline,  but, as a rule, public debt is judged by the results of years,  because they allow us to assess how the debt burden is developing. At  least our annual forecasts in terms of debt development let us not  talk about uncontrolled growth of the debt burden, "said the head of  the Ministry of Finance.

As Atom Dzhandzhugazyan noted, it is assumed that in nominal terms  debt will increase, which, however, does not mean that the debt-GDP  ratio is projected to increase. As for servicing the state debt, the  financial authorities of Armenia do not see any problems here either.  According to the head of the Ministry of Finance, Armenia will  withstand the nearest first major repayment of government debt in  2020 thanks to the successful refinancing of Eurobonds.

According to the Ministry of Finance of Armenia, the state debt of  Armenia by the end of July 2019 from $ 6.923 million (as of December  31, 2018) increased by $ 62 million, reaching $ 6.985 million.  Government debt increased by $ 98 million to $ 6.471 million, while  the debt of the Central Bank, by contrast, fell by approximately $ 37  million to $ 513 million. Meanwhile, according to the approved state  budget for 2019, in 2019 Armenia will increase its public debt by $  512 million, of which $ 21 million through the Central Bank. This  year, as a result of the tax and budget policy, the level of public  debt will be stabilized. So, it is expected that the ratio of  government debt to GDP will decrease from 55% of the projected by the  end of 2018 to 53.43% of GDP, and the ratio of government debt to GDP  by the end of 2018 will be reduced from 53.4% to 49.7% . In general,  by the end of 2019, the public debt will grow to $ 7.468 billion with  the expected budget for 2018 of about $ 7.2 billion.

As ArmInfo was previously informed in the Department of Public Debt  Management of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Armenia, in  2019, Armenia will send about 356.9 billion drams ($ 733 million) to  repay and service the government debt, which at the end of 2018  amounted to $ 6,372.9 million. ) According to the schedule of  repayment of government debt, until 2054, the most peak in servicing  the public debt will be 2020 and 2025. In 2020, Armenia will have to  "pay out" about 417 billion drams or $ 857 million (the calculated  exchange rate of the Armenian dram to the dollar is $ 1 = 486.55  drams), and in 2025, to repay the principal amount of all government  debt formed at the end of December 2018 The price of the issue will  be about 406 billion drams ($ 834 million). In both cases, $ 500  million of this amount are repayments on Eurobonds. Thus, experts say  that in 2020, before the next debt payment, Armenia will decide on  the next, the third issue of Eurobonds.