As of the last day of last year, Armenia’s state debt amounted to 6 billion 774 million dollars. During one year, the RA state debt increased by 832.5 million dollars or 12 percent.

This is indicated in the indicators published by the RA National Statistical Service. The foreign debt increased by 689 million dollars during the last year and amounted to 5 billion 494 million dollars as of the last day of the year. The domestic debt increased by 143 million dollars and amounted to 1 billion 279 million dollars.

In the external debt structure, the debt of the Central Bank is 601.5 million dollars, and the debt of the government is about 4.9 billion dollars.

It is noteworthy that the law forbids the debt of the government in RA to exceed 60 percent of the volume of GDP of the previous year. Last year, the same indicator was 52.2 percent of the GDP of 2015. Growth: 6.5 percent.

This high indicator was due to the fact that the GDP growth in 2016 was insignificant – 0.2 percent. “And since we expect a greater growth of GDP this year, according to our forecasts, the debt to GDP will decrease in 2018, making 58.2 percent,” the Minister of Finance of RA stated earlier. Vardan Aramyanadding that for the first time in recent years, they plan to reduce the debt-GDP ratio from 2018.

Accordingly, in 2018, it is predicted that the public debt will grow at a slower rate compared to previous years, as a result of which, according to the forecasts of global finnakh, the indicator of public debt to GDP may decrease by 0.5-1 percentage point.

At the same time, the government is also discussing scenarios in which case they can change the law by increasing the government’s debt-GDP ratio. “We are talking about exceptional cases: war, crisis, disaster,” RA Deputy Finance Minister said months ago Armen Hayrapetyan:

The mechanism is as follows, for example, there are shocks and there is a need to increase the government’s debt ceiling. The government remains with the relevant legislative projects to the National Assembly and presents justifications.

In the context of the positive attitude and approval of the National Assembly, that threshold rises, but with the obligation to return to the previous index.

It should be noted that such a need has not yet arisen in RA, even during the April 2016 military clashes, the government did not initiate the above-mentioned legislative change regarding the increase of the debt burden.