BUDGET BROUGHT TO NA

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| 16:56:44 | 12-10-2005 | Politics |

NA started to discuss the 2006 draft budget. At present it is discussed
in standing committees. The discussion will last several days, and
the budget will be investigated part by part according to sections.

The first day of representing the budget to NA saw the Prime Minister,
the Minister of Finance and the President of the Central Bank in
the Parliament.

According to them, the budget of the coming year has an important
peculiarity: for the first time in the history of independent Armenia
the budget crossed the border of a billion.

The Government offers the Parliament to confirm the following data of
the budget: income – 382 billion ARMD, expenses – 451.9 billion ARMD,
and deficit – 69.9 billion ARMD. Minister of Finance Vardan Khachatryan
mentioned that for the last few years the budget deficit has been 3%
only which meets the CoE demands.

It is noteworthy that in the draft budget 1USD costs 468.2 ARMD.

Nevertheless, the relation is not yet confirmed, and it will be revised
before representing the budget to the NA plenary session. The officials
mentioned that in 2006 wages in several fields, as well as pensions
will be raised. For example, the average salary of the teachers will
be more than 58 000.

Several RA Laws are to be amended for the RA Government to be able to
keeps their promise about the raise of the old-age pensions. Although
there will be no changes in the tax field, there will be some referring
to the social security payments.

By the way, in the Parliament hall the draft was discussed mainly
by the members of the coalition. The only representatives of the NA
opposition were independent deputy Manouk Gasparyan and representative
of “National Unity” fraction Aghasi Arshakyan who soon left the hall.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress