Armenia’s 2018 state budget draft aims at reaching a stable and long-term goal, finance minister Vardan Aramyan said during the discussion of the budget draft at the joint session of parliamentary standing committees.

“If we want to give permanent solutions to different issues, including social issues, it’s important for us to have a stable and high economic growth. We should seek for 5% economic growth rather than 3%. The 3% economic growth doesn’t enable us to steadily solve our problems”, the minister said.

He added that in different economic cycles the fiscal policy should be smart. “Otherwise we face problems both in the medium and long term”, he stated.

The minister highlighted the importance of stabilization of state debt for stable economic growth. According to him, the government tried to present a budget which enables to reduce the state debt-GDP ratio by one percentage point for 2018.