YEREVAN, October 18. /ARKA/. Despite the heavy crisis that have affected all the countries, Armenia’s position remained quite stable, Yvonne Tsikata, Sector Director of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) Unit of the World Bank Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region, said Tuesday at a news conference presenting the World Bank’s report on Armenia’s public expenditure, tax and budgetary consolidation and recovery.
She said this had given Armenia an opportunity to introduce a fiscal stimulation package that made it possible to mitigate or in some way prevent adverse consequences of the crisis.
Tsikata said that these efforts should be continued to prepare the country for probable future impacts of the crisis.
The WB has prepared this report jointly with Armenian finance ministry and the state revenue committee.
The report briefly presents macroeconomic situation in Armenia and analyses latest developments related to the country’s foreign debt and their impacts on tax and budgetary consolidation putting special emphasis on the necessity to enlarge revenue and enhance effectiveness of expenses.
Vache Gabrielyan, speaking at the same news conference, said that this is the second report of this kind in Armenia’s history – the first that released in early 2000s has had significant influence on further policy.
“We find the document that is being discussed now in draft version very important,” he said.
The report estimates the country’s revenue capacity, which the government can use by improving tax administration and tax policy.
The report also contains a detailed analysis of effectiveness of expenses in transport sector and in the fund salaries in education, healthcare and public services areas in terms of retaining stable growth and reducing poverty.
Taking into account that Armenia formed a wide tax-budgetary deficit and low level of state debt while resisting the crisis, it can be stated that the country is in need of tax-budgetary consolidation, which however shouldn’t be ensured at the account of stable economic growth. -0-
