ArmInfo.The total amount of interstate loans issued by the Republic of Armenia to the Republic of Artsakh from 1993 to 2023 amounted to 1 trillion 155 billion 973 million drams or about $2.9 billion at the current exchange rate. This was reported by the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Armenia in response to a request from ArmInfo.
Thus, for the period from 1993 to 2000, Armenia provided Artsakh with loans on preferential terms (with a y-o-y interest rate of 0.01%) about 43.4 billion drams, from 2001 to 2003 - 9-9.5 billion drams y-o-y, from 2004 to 2018 the amount increased from approximately 11 billion drams (annually) to 51.4 billion drams.
In 2019, the government allocated an interstate loan to Stepanakert in the amount of 57.8 billion drams, in 2020 - 75.1 billion drams, and by 2021 the amount had sharply doubled - to 128.7 billion drams. Last year, the actual volume of loans reached 176 billion drams (against the 144 billion drams approved by the Law "On the State Budget of the Republic of Armenia for 2022").
This year, despite the fact that the RA state budget fixed the figure at 136 billion drams, and then adjusted it to 156.4 billion drams, according to the Ministry of Finance, as of October 1, 2023, the actual amount of allocated funds amounted to about 145 billion 175 million drams.
The repayment period for loans issued for 1993-2021 was set at January 1, 2025, for a loan for 2022 - at January 1, 2026, and for a loan issued in 2023 - at January 1, 2027. The Ministry of Finance noted that the interest calculated until the maturity date is a little more than 1 billion drams.
In total, the amount of loans provided to the Republic of Artsakh is approximately 25% of the public debt of the Republic of Armenia itself ($11.3 billion).
