YEREVAN, APRIL 22, ARMENPRESS. The 2020 government budget revenues totaled 1 trillion 560 billion 655 million 340,8 thousand drams, while the spending stood at 1 trillion 894 million 647,093,3 thousand drams, with a deficit of 333 billion 991 million 752,6 thousand, finance minister Atom Janjughazyan said at the Cabinet meeting.

He noted that during the 2,9% global economic growth in 2019 Armenia succeeded in recording 7,6% growth, which allowed the government to revise the budget spending resources. In particular, the allocations in the Education, Science, Culture and Sports grew 11%, healthcare allocations grew 22% and capital spending grew 30%, he said.

“At yearend the government debt/GDP ratio was lower than 50%, which allowed to maintain the fiscal policy logic during crisis by way of attracting new debt in 2020. As a result we had a bigger deficit than planned. Initially we had an expected deficit of 2,3% of the budget, but factually we had a nearly 5,5% of GDP deficit. This was the price we paid to mitigate the impact of the economic decline. The debt level with 2020 results totaled 63,5% of the GDP. In these conditions we must reduce this indicator to 60% in 5 years. This is the threshold which is considered in the world as manageable in terms of risk,” Janjughazyan said, adding that the crisis situation in Armenia in 2020 is comparable in terms of figures to that of other developing countries.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan