ArmInfo. Armenia's public debt as of June 30 amounted to 5 trillion 116 billion drams, and 13 billion 900 million in US dollars. This was announced on September 9 by RA Finance Minister Vahe Hovhannisyan at a meeting of the National Assembly Committee on Financial, Credit, and Budgetary Affairs.
"The public debt in drams decreased by 3.5% in the first half of the year, while in US dollars it remained virtually unchanged. This is due to exchange rate fluctuations, but also, in fact, to the fact that, despite having a budget surplus, we fell somewhat behind our plan for attracting borrowed funds, and there were problems. Accordingly, the public debt as of June 30 amounted to 5 million 116 billion drams, compared to 5 trillion 303 billion as of December 31 last year. The national dollar debt stands at $13.9 billion, and if we're talking about meeting key performance indicators, we're essentially meeting all of them," the minister noted.
According to him, in terms of debt management, the Ministry of Finance is focusing on issuing medium-term bonds to also manage the state's debt servicing costs. "That is, we're not issuing bonds at the price offered by the domestic market, and that's why we've seen both a reduction in interest rates and a significant reduction in primary bond placements issued in the first half of the year. Compared to the previous year, interest rates have fallen by 1.7%, which is very encouraging for all of us, as this creates the opportunity to avoid a significant increase in interest payments on future loans and use these funds for activities that are important to our state," the head of the Ministry of Finance noted.
