State debt of Armenia registered decline starting from September 2020

ArmInfo.  The national debt of  Armenia in September 2020 decreased by 1.4% after the stagnant 0.3%  growth in August, which is due to the reversal of the dynamics of  both external debt from 0.1% growth to 1.3% decline, and internal  debt from 1% growth to 1.7% decline. As a result, the state debt of  Armenia by October 2020 amounted to $ 7.9 billion (3.8 trillion  drams), in particular, the external debt - $ 5.98 billion (2.9  trillion drams), and the internal debt - $ 1.9 billion (915.7 billion  drams). This is evidenced by the data of the RA Ministry of Finance.

In January-September 2020, the national debt of Armenia increased by  7.3% (against growth by 1.8% in 9 months of 2019). Moreover, a modest  nine-month increase in external debt by 3.3% was accompanied by a  jump in domestic debt by 22.2%, while a year earlier the upward rate  was much more modest - a stagnant 0.2% increase in external debt was  accompanied by an increase in domestic debt by 8, 5%.

In Q3 of 2020, the growth of the state debt of Armenia slowed down to  1.8% from 5.9% in the Q2, due to the reversal of the dynamics of  external debt from 4.6% growth to 0.04% decline, while the growth of  domestic debt from 10.9% to 8%.

In y-o-y terms (in September 2020 to September 2019), the national  debt of Armenia accelerated growth from 4.6% to 11.3%. This was  triggered by the acceleration in the growth of both external debt  from 2.4% to 7.8% and domestic debt from 13.7% to 24.8%.

To note, the World Bank in the updated October forecast worsened  expectations for the ratio of Armenia's public debt to GDP for 2020  towards growth to 63.8% (from the actual 53.5% in 2019), against the  previously expected 57.2%. And for 2021, the World Bank predicts a  slight decrease in this indicator - to 63.6% of GDP. In the same  forecast, the WB worsened expectations on the dynamics of Armenia's  GDP - to a 6.3% decline in 2020 (against the previously expected 2.8%  decline and an actual 7.6% growth in 2019), while in 2021 predicting  the growth of GDP by 4.6%.

As a reminder, by January 1, 2020, the total national debt of Armenia  was 3.5 trillion drams or $ 7.3 billion, in the structure of which  the external debt -2.8 trillion drams or $ 5.8 billion, and the  internal debt -737.2 billion drams or $ 1.5 billion. The national  debt of Armenia increased by 5,8% in 2019, due to the growth of  external debt by 4.6% with an increase in domestic debt by 10.7%.