15:10,

YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. An improvement has been made in the composition of the debt in 2021, the share of the dram debt in the government’s debt has increased, Minister of Finance Tigran Khachatryan said in the Parliament today.

In 2021, the government debt must have comprised the 62.3% of the GDP, he said. Based on the actual results of the year, the government debt comprised 4 trillion 209 billion drams or the 60.3% of the GDP, which is lower by 2 percentage points than the preliminary estimation made in the beginning of the year.

“We can state that the actual indicator of 2021 has registered an important progress in improvement of debt manageability due to the high economic growth than planned on the one hand, and the consistent fiscal policy on the other hand. Moreover, there has been a significant improvement in the debt composition during the year, by increasing the share of the dram debt in the total debt of the government”, he said.

The dram debt figure in the debt composition has increased, reaching 28.8%, compared to the 24.4% in 2020. The minister said this change in the composition is in accordance with the debt’s medium-term management guidelines which require that in order to reduce the risks connected with the exchange rate fluctuations, the share of domestic debt in the overall debt should be no less than 25%.

“The increase of dram debt in the government’s debt composition has led to a certain increase in the weighted interest rate of the government’s debt, which comprised 4.7% in 2021 compared to the 4.3% of the previous year”, the minister said.

However, he considered it necessary to take into account that as a result of the increase of domestic debt and interest rates in the government’s debt composition, the incomes of residents of Armenia become more of the latter. “In particular, 108.3 billion drams of the 180.8 billion drams interest payments paid in 2021 or the 60% of the overall interest payments were the internal interest payments, whereas the interest payments for the external debt comprised 72.5 billion drams or 40%. The fiscal policy of 2021, including the increase in tax revenues, the balance of expenditures, the cut in state budget deficit had a significant positive impact on the restoration of macro-economic stability and formation of positive expectations over Armenia’s economic development prospects”, Tigran Khachatryan said.