Armenian parliament votes down wage increase bill

YEREVAN, November 16. /ARKA/. Armenian National Assembly voted Wednesday against amendments to the minimum monthly salary law.

The amendments had been proposed by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutiun party. They implied a new mechanism for figuring out a minimum salary and are aimed at increasing the lower benchmark of the monthly salary.

In particular, the bill specifies that a minimum salary can’t be smaller than 50% of the median salary and lower than minimum of subsistence and the 2010 minimum salary recalculated with taking into account year-on-year inflation.

It was also specified that minimum salary of civil servants and public sector’s employees must not be smaller than 120% of the minimum salary set by the law – AMD 32,500.

A day earlier, Finance Minister Vache Gabrielyan opposed the bill saying there were no sufficient funds in the government budget for putting these proposals into practice.

He said the amendment of the law could create additional inflation pressures, which would strike hard at the poor.

The minister, however, stressed that the 2012 government budget is socially-oriented, and revenue will be targeted for implementation of an appropriate social package.

Social expenses make up 29% of total expenses in the 2012 draft government budget.

As a whole, 48.3% of budget funds will be used as social spending.

AMD 17 billion is earmarked for increasing pensions and social benefits by 10%.

Average monthly family benefit will be raised from AMD 26,803 to AMD 29,583.

Social pension will be raised from AMD 13,200 to AMD 16,500, and the working pension will average AMD 31,200 instead of the present AMD 28,700.

A new AMD 18-billion social package is planned to be implemented the next year as well.

Annual bonus of 100,000 or 120,000 drams is considerable for those who earn 50,000 to 60,000 drams a month,” he said adding that bonuses will be smaller for civil servants with higher salaries.

On September 29, Armenian government approved the 2012 draft budget. The budget revenue is projected at AMD 910 billion, spending AMD 1042.5 billion and deficit 132.5 billion here.

In this draft budget, revenue is planned to be enlarged by 6.8% in 2012, compared with 2011 (AMD 852.4 billion) and spending is projected to grow by about AMD 41.5 billion. ($1 =  AMD 384.9).--0--