YEREVAN, November 30, /ARKA/. In his statement to the 12-th convention of the Republican Party on November 28 President Serzh Sargsyan said in recent months the macroeconomic developments and strong tendencies toward the stabilization of the economy permit the government to make more confident forecasts regarding the prospects of the country’s economic development in 2010.

In his words, It also allows to review some indices in the draft budget for 2010, providing for the increase of the state budget in both funding and spending. ‘
Today we can already state with confidence that in its spending part the budget 2010 will exceed factual spending for 2009. Furthermore, the 2010 budget will exceed the 2009 budget,’ the president said.

“We have had the opportunity to get favorable loans from the European Union, which will allow in the future to augment the 2010 budget with another 60 billion AMD and increase spending. As a result, next year the spending part of the state budget will come close to 1 trillion AMD. I would like to stress that all the talks that the Republic of Armenia has a huge state debt are only for those, who are not well familiar with the economic policy and are aimed at terrifying our people.’ he said.

‘The very notion of “debt” exists just for this kind of situations. Had we had plenty of money, we wouldn’t borrow. Besides, money is lent to those who have good credit. When our state is given charity, we receive grants and not loans. And if we are lent money, it means we have established good credit. Better times will come, our budget will grow, our GDP will grow, and we will bounce back. In the budget to be presented to the National Assembly we will definitely be able to increase spending in the important areas such as economic development and export facilitation, development of agricultural infrastructure, education and defense, assistance to the NKR, and others,’ he said..

According to him, active steps aimed at the increasing the country’s international competitiveness, particularly, reforms in tax and customs administration, creation of equal opportunities for all, equal territorial development, reformation of the pension system, and overall efforts directed at the modernization of the country will continue.

‘This is one of the most serious challenges facing not only me as the President or us, as the Republican Party and coalition partners, but all of us - our entire society and nation.

Regardless of political and economic upheavals, regardless of the outcome of the elections, regardless of the international and regional situation we shouldn’t forget that we have to do all which is possible and impossible so that next generations inherit a much more developed, much more prosperous and developed country. I am confident that we are able to pass this historic test with the understanding that development and prosperity of our state depends,’ he said. -0-