Armenian defence minister vows to increase military budget in 2005

Armenian defence minister vows to increase military budget in 2005

Arminfo
18 Nov 04

YEREVAN

It is necessary to increase budget allocations for the defence sphere
in Armenia’s draft budget for 2005 because the military budgets of
Georgia and Azerbaijan are incomparably bigger, Mger Shakhgeldyan,
chairman of the standing parliamentary commission on defence, national
security and internal affairs, has told an Arminfo correspondent.

In turn, Finance and Economy Minister Vardan Khachatryan promised to
reconsider and increase the budget allocations for the defence sphere
in the draft budget. Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan also pointed to
the need to reconsider and increase the defence budget taking into
account the growing world market prices and the need to increase
servicemen’s wages.

The draft budget for 2005 envisages the allocation of 53.7bn drams
[106.9m dollars] for the defence sphere.