VIDEO: The Current Situation is Far from Our Dreams, Finance Minister

In the National Assembly, Finance Minister Vahe Hovhannisyan presented the revised version of the 2025 state budget. According to him, the newly emerged realities regarding the reassessment of GDP in the draft 2025 state budget have resulted in a revision of the budget's revenues, expenditures, and deficit based on the recalculation at the exchange rate as of November 1.

"In the revised draft of the 2025 budget, GDP is projected to be 10 trillion 891 billion drams, with a projected growth rate of 5.1 percent. These indicators have changed in the downward direction compared to the initial draft, with a reduction of 158 billion drams and 0.5 percentage points, respectively. The state budget revenues will amount to 2 trillion 837 billion drams, which is 35.5 billion drams less than the initial version. This reduction is mainly due to a decrease in tax revenues following the reassessment of GDP. Tax revenues have decreased by 39.6 billion drams, while official grants have increased by 1.6 billion drams. The increase of 2.6 billion drams in other revenues is attributed to the reassessment of certain revenue types and changes in the exchange rate," he stated.

The Minister informed that state budget expenditures will be 3 trillion 441 billion drams, of which current expenditures will be 2 trillion 706 billion drams, and capital expenditures will be 734 billion drams. "The budget expenditures have decreased by 40.8 billion drams compared to the first phase, with current expenditures decreasing by 42.4 billion drams, while capital expenditures have increased by 1.7 billion drams," Hovhannisyan noted.

According to him, the state budget deficit has remained at the level of 5.5 percent of GDP, amounting to 604 million drams. "It is expected that by the end of 2024, global debt will surpass 100 trillion dollars, which constitutes 93 percent of the world's GDP. This means that the average debt-to-GDP ratio will be 93 percent, while in Armenia, this figure will be around 54.3 percent by the end of this year; however, it will continue to remain manageable," he added.

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