ArmInfo. 273 billion drams will be allocated from the state budget of Armenia to pay interest rates on attracted loans in 2023. RA Minister of Finance Tigran Khachatryan announced this on December 7 at the plenary session of the RA National Assembly.
He stressed that during the next year it is planned that revenues will prevail over expenditures, and the difference will be used to pay off the state budget deficit of 289 billion drams. The minister added that it is planned to attract more loans and grants in 2023, but the placement of government bonds is not excluded.
Khachatryan assured that next year the amount of public debt will not exceed 50% of the country's GDP, which will be a significant achievement over the past three years. Moreover, as the minister recalled, according to the results of 2020, the amount of public debt was 63.5% of GDP. A decrease in this indicator will allow the country's government to attract additional funds, while implementing a more flexible policy in the areas of their use. Khachatryan did not rule out that next year interest rates on attracted loans could grow, since the development of the economy and income growth, as well as the growth of GDP per capita, which by the end of this year will exceed 6.5 thousand dollars, will not allow attracting new credit resources on favorable terms. "We need to start learning how to attract ordinary loans on market terms, because over time, loans on favorable terms will begin to leave the state's loan portfolio," Khachatryan said.
Earlier, ArmInfo, referring to the data of the RA Statistical Committee, reported that by November 1, 2022, Armenia's state debt had reached $10.1 billion (3.98 trillion drams), having increased both year-on-year and over 10 months by 10%.
This is due to an increase in domestic debt by 56% (with an increase of 50% over 10 months), with a decline in external debt by 9% per annum (against a decline of 7.6% over 10 months). As a result, external debt slowed down at $6.1 billion (2.4 trillion drams), while domestic debt reached $3.9 billion (1.6 trillion drams). According to the results of 10 months of 2022, the share of the government in the structure of external debt decreased to 91.2% from 92.9% a year earlier, while the share of the Central Bank increased to 8.8% from last year's 7.1%, amounting to $5.6 billion and $538.6 million in absolute terms, respectively.
