ArmInfo.The budget of Armenia was summed up in January- November 2019 with a surplus of 40.2 billion drams ($ 84 million), with a y-o-y growth of 2.8-fold, while a year earlier a deficit was recorded in the same period (with a 2.7-fold y-o-y decline) . According to the RA Statitical Committee, the budget revenues of Armenia accelerated the y-o-y growth from 6.2% to 18.7%, while expenditures turned from the 1.7% decline to 10.5% growth, amounting to 1.398 trillion and 1.358 trillion drams respectively.
In the structure of revenues, the share of taxes and duties increased in y-o-y terms (January-November 2019 to the same period of 2018) - from 93.8% to 94%, increasing by 19% to 1.3 trillion drams in absolute terms (versus 5.8% growth a year earlier). In particular, income from profit tax accelerated annual growth from 36.5% to 52.6%, amounting to 207.8 billion drams; value added tax - from 5.9% to 18.8% - to 467.6 billion; income tax - from 5% to 26.4% - up to 404.8 billion; tax turnover - from 25.6% to 48.3% - to 31.3 billion; customs duties - from 11.9% to 16% - up to 85 billion; state duties - from 2.8% to 19.3% - to 39.6 billion. At the same time, growth in income from payments for use of natural resources and environmental preservation slowed down- from 27% to 15.1% - up to 51.8 billion drams, from targeted social payments - from 15.4% to 6.3% - up to 17 billion, from excise tax - from 30.4 % up to 26% - up to 121.2 billion.
Against this background, only subsidies were remained in the structure of budget expenditures in a downtrend - by 0.9% to 94.4 billion drams (against the decline by 1.8% a year earlier). And the grants came out of the 6.1% decline to 9.3% growth - up to 122.3 billion drams. At the same time, annual growth acceleration was observed in spending on: benefits and pensions - from 1.8% to 8.9% - up to 415 billion drams; salaries - from 4.9% to 11.9% - to 144.4 billion; purchase of goods and services - from 1.3% to 18.6% - up to 153.6 billion drams. Interest payment expenses increased by 13.2% year-on-year to 153.5 billion drams, of which 84.1 billion (with an increase of 17.3%) accounted for payments on external debt.
Expenditures on non-financial assets turned from a 30.8% decline to a 24.1% growth, amounting to 108.1 billion drams.
To note, the calculated exchange rate of dram on November 29, 2019 amounted to 477.88 AMD / $ 1, and in January-November, the average calculated exchange rate of dram was 480.65 AMD/ $ 1.