Armenian parliament approves 2021 budget execution report
YEREVAN, June 15. /ARKA/. By a vote of 68 the Armenian National Assembly approved today the Finance Ministry's report on the execution of 2021 state budget.
Minister Tigran Khachatryan said the economic growth in 2021, initially projected at 3.2%, was 5.7% due to growth in services.
He said real exports of goods and services increased by 16.5% and imports by 10.9%. The nominal growth of the export of goods was 19.1% (about $3 billion) and imports -16.9% (about $5.3 billion).
Khachatryan said the 12-month inflation in 2021 was 7.7%, of which 4.8% resulted from inflation of food products and soft drinks; another 1.9% was contributed by higher prices for non-food products. Remittances increased 24% in 2021, mostly from the U.S. and Russia.
"In 2021, Armenia's state budget revenues amounted to 1 trillion 683.8 billion drams, which was 7.9% more than in 2020," he said.
The minister specified that 94.2% of the revenues were taxes -1 trillion 587 billion drams, which amounted to 22.7% of GDP. In comparison with the same period of 2020, taxes increased by 14.6%. Annual tax revenues were about 147 billion drams higher than what was initially provided for by the state budget.
Khachatryan informed that state budget expenses in 2021 amounted to 2.4 trillion drams that is 153 billion drams more than planned. Current expenses totaled 1 trillion 788 billion drams (89.2%) and capital expenditures were 218.4 billion drams (10.8%).
"Compared to 2020, current spending increased by about 120 billion drams, or 7.2%. The government also paid 180.8 billion drams as interests on its debt, 16 billion drams more than in 2020," he said.
Khachatryan said the state budget deficit in 2021 was 320.5 billion drams, down 4% from 2020. The "budget-GDP deficit" ratio in 2021 was 4.6 percent instead of the initially planned 5.3 percent and 5.4 percent in 2020.
"The weighted average yield of government bonds outstanding in 2021 was 9.3%, which exceeded the yield of bonds issued in 2020 by 1.5%," he said. He said also the demand for government bonds in 2021 was 1.9 times higher than the offering.
He added that the government's debt-to-GDP ratio in 2021 was 60.3%, a 3.2% improvement over 2020. -0-
