Vardan Amaryan: 5.5 thousand people will cut off from state apparatus (video)
Today, at the Standing Committees of the National Assembly Minister of Finance Vardan Aramyan stated during the discussion of the RA draft law on State Budget of the Republic of Armenia for 2018 that they had tried to design the state budget according to a general rule: stable, long-term economic growth with fiscal policy. "We must bid for 5% growth. Numerous analyzes show that 3% economic growth does not give us the opportunity to solve the problems we face in a sustainable way. Fiscal policy should be reasonable in different stages. 2018 the debt-GDP ratio can be reduced by 1 percentage point, I mean the Government's debt. The main investments will go to industry. It is expected that agriculture and construction will show signs of recovery. 3-4% growth of agriculture is expected, construction demand rises, and recession trends recorded in recent years will be corrected." The Minister informed that in 2017 the growth of tax collection in January-September was 8.8%, and by the end of the year they expect it to reach 10%. "This year, the index of taxes- GDP was 0.6%. We expect this indicator to be improved by an additional 0.4 percentage point in 2018. This is a balanced indicator." This year, 144,000 people receive salaries from the state budget, and the salary fund amounts to 246 billion drams, without power ministries. "In 2018 5.5 thousand people will cut off from state apparatus, and consequently, the salary fund will decrease by 3 billion drams. The government tries to reconsider costs. The main purpose of this is not to try to reduce the number of people, it is a bad tool, it's a bad approach, but to go out of functionality. This year, administrative staff was reduced by 770 people, but the expenses have increased, some part goes to the normal salary growth, the other part is paid to embassies, because of wage increase that happens due to exchange rate fluctuations, and the last part goes to the SRC reform; in order to reduce corruption risks you have to make adequate payments to isnpectors." The defense expenditures will amount to 174 billion drams. The Minister said that the state budget's reserve fund had been grown by around 5-6 billion drams. Vardan Aramyan mentioned that in 2018, revenues would amount to 1 trillion 300 billion, expenditures - 1 trillion 464 billion, and deficit - 156.9 billion drams. "Income and expenses grow equally, but the deficit remains the same."
