Epress.am News from Armenia
Opposition Armenian National Congress MP Aram Manukyan deemed the 2017 draft state budget, currently under Parliament's discussion, ineffective in the fight against shadow economy. Speaking at the NA today, the oppositionist announced that the shadow economy in Armenia is currently at least 40 percent the size of GDP, whereas the draft does not even mention the issue. In other words, Manukyan went on, the proposed budget does not correspond to the promises given by the new “reformist government.”
“[The government] had been trying to convince us for years that Armenia's GDP-external debt ratio was within reasonable limits and did not surpass the 50-percent mark. For the first time ever, it was announced today that the debt has reached 55 percent and is still expected to rise by two percent,” Manukyan said.
While presenting the draft budget, finance minister Vardan Aramyan insisted that the foreign loans were needed to ensure that the rate of economic growth in Armenia does not slow. “In 2014-16, Armenia had a 840 million USD decline in remittances. Obviously, such a loss could result in a dramatic depreciation of the national currency and lead to a negative impact on the economic environment. If the government did not compensate this money with foreign loans, we'd have had an even lower economic growth,” the minister said.
Mikayel Melkumyan, a lawmaker with the Prosperous Armenia Party faction, also criticized the draft budget, arguing that it did not offer any real solutions for ensuring economic growth and was only a “survival budget.”