EurasiaNet, NY
March 13 2009
ARMENIA TIGHTENING ITS BELT
3/13/09
Armenia is shifting budgetary priorities and spending schedules to
brace the country for worse economic times ahead. "In the light of the
crisis, we have to economize and spend just as much as we can collect
through taxes," Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan was quoted by
the ArmInfo news agency as saying on March 12.
At a government meeting, it was decided to move the "riskiest"
budgetary revenues and expenditures toward the end of the year. The
funding of state bureaucracy, acquisition of real estate and some
government projects will be trimmed, if not halted, ArmInfo reported,
without elaborating.
Finance Minister Tigran Davtian told a press briefing on March 12 that
in the first half of 2009 the treasury may fall short of its target
income by as much as $354 million. Davtian said that the International
Monetary Fund’s recently approved $540 million loan combined with $525
million from the World Bank and another $500 million loan tentatively
pledged by Russia would help Armenia through what could prove to be a
financially tumultuous year.