ArmInfo. The draft state budget of Armenia for 2025 is another step towards the vision of the ruling political force for the future of the state, aimed at strengthening resilience, stimulating the development of economic potential, and ensuring fiscal stability. This was stated by the RA Minister of Finance Vahe Hovhannisyan on November 12, while presenting the draft state budget of Armenia for 2025 to the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia.
According to him, the main economic law of the country is aimed at the sustainable development of the state, but each citizen of the country or a group of people has their own demands and problems, and it is necessary to find those points of contact that will satisfy them. The Minister added that in recent years, the Armenian economy has demonstrated a high level of resilience, including due to the macroeconomic policy developed and implemented by the government and the Central Bank. In many ways, it is thanks to this policy that the country's economic growth rate continues to remain high.
In the first half of 2024, 6.5% GDP growth was recorded, and in January-July of this year, the growth of economic activity was at the level of 9.6%. Under these conditions, in 2024, the GDP growth rate of Armenia is projected to be within 5.8%, and in 2025 - 5.6%. To a large extent, the GDP growth was facilitated by the consistently implemented policy of increasing spending on infrastructure projects, increasing the competitiveness of Armenian goods in various markets, improving the business environment, forming competitive eco-systems for IT companies, and efforts to integrate internally displaced persons from Nagorno-Karabakh into the labor market. The Minister emphasized that according to the draft state budget, in 2025, tax revenues to the state treasury will amount to 2.455 trillion drams, and the GDP-tax ratio will improve by 0.2 percentage points. As a result of tax administration and improvement of tax legislation, this indicator is expected to improve by another 0.7% points, which will lead to an increase in the share of taxes in the country's GDP to 25%.
According to the draft budget for 2025, under the conditions of ensuring GDP growth of 5.6%, 3.5% GDP deflator and average inflation of 3.6%, the state budget revenues of Armenia in 2025 will grow by 279.5 billion drams - to 2 trillion 873.1 billion drams (about $ 7.4 billion), which is 11% higher than the expected figure for the current year, and 22% - the actual figure for 2023. State treasury expenditures are planned at 3 trillion 482.4 billion ($ 7.8 billion) or 31.5% of GDP. The figure is 13% higher than expectations for 2024 (30.4%), and 37% higher than actual expenditures for 2023 (27.5%).
Of the planned expenditures for next year, 2 trillion 749.2 billion drams will be current expenditures (24.9% of GDP). 733.2 billion drams ($1.88 billion) or 6.6% of GDP will be spent on non-financial operations (capital investments), which is higher than the planned figure for 2024 of 695 billion drams ($1.79 billion), and the expected 639.3 billion ($1.65 billion) - 6.3% of GDP expected by this project. According to the results of last year, capital expenditures amounted to 472.6 billion drams or 5% of GDP. The deficit in 2025 will amount to 609.4 billion drams or 5.5% of GDP, against 482.9 billion drams or 4.6% of GDP in the budget approved for the current year and 4.8% - according to this document.
