ArmInfo. According to the updated World Bank forecast, instead of the previously expected increase, the ratio of the state debt of Armenia to GDP in 2019 is now expected to decrease to 52.6% from the actual 55.8% in 2018, and to continue the decline in 2020 to 51.7% and in 2021 up to 50.6%. A new forecast is given in the WB economic report, "Migration and Brain Drain. World Bank Europe and Central Asia Economic Update" published on October 9. As a comparison, we note that the previous WB forecast (March 2019) on the state debt of Armenia provided for a ratio to GDP of 56.3% in 2019 with a decrease to 56% in 2020.
The WB improved the forecast for the growth of the Armenian economy: 5.5% in 2019 with a slowdown in 2020 to 5.1% and an acceleration in 2021 to 5.2%, against the actual growth in 2018 by 5.2%. It should be noted that the state debt of Armenia increased by 2.2% in 2018 (against growth by 15.3% in 2017), amounting to $ 6.923 billion (3.349 trillion drams). In particular, external debt increased by 0.7% in 2018 (against growth by 14.6% in 2017), amounting to $ 5.533 billion (2.677 trillion drams), and domestic debt - by 8.6% (against growth by 18, 2% in 2017), amounting to $ 1.390 billion (672.4 billion drams). In 2018, the government's share in the structure of external debt increased from 89.1% to 90.1%, amounting to $ 4.983 billion and the Central Bank's share, on the contrary, decreased from 10.9% to 9.9%, amounting to $ 550.05 million. In 2018, the external debt of the government slowed down the growth rate to 1.8% from 14% in 2017, and the external debt of the Central Bank turned the dynamics from 19.2% growth in the direction of decline by 8.6%.
The slowdown in government debt growth, with a decrease in migration, kept the unit debt burden per capita at $ 2.3 thousand. Of these, $ 1.9 thousand, as a year earlier, comes from external debt. In 2018, the population of the Republic of Armenia decreased slightly - from 2.973 million to 2.965 million.
The degree of coverage of external debt with gold and foreign exchange reserves decreased in 2018 from 42.1% to 40.6%, against the background of a sharp slowdown in the growth of external debt and a reversal in the dynamics of reserves from a 5% increase to a 2.8% decline.