YEREVAN, June 26. /ARKA/. The amount of money transfers sent to Armenia mostly by labor migrant in Russia and some other countries has slashed by 38 percent over the past three years, finance minister Vardan Aramyan said on Monday during a parliament discussion on the execution of 2016 state budget. In his words, the three-year reduction translated to $830 million.

Speaking about the state's revenues, the minister noted that in 2016 they amounted to 1.171 trillion drams, while the spending to 1.449 trillion drams.

"As a result, the originally planned deficit rose from 3.5% to 5.5% of GDP. In absolute terms, the deficit amounted to about 278 billion drams,” he said.

According to Aramyan, the increase in deficit resulted from negative developments in the world economy over the past three years. "The government was forced to allow the excess of the deficit in order to meet these challenges," Aramyan added.

According to the Central Bank, money transfers to Armenia in 2016 totaled $1.532.8 billion, a decrease of 6% from 2015, while money transfers from Armenia to other countries grew by 7.3% to $816.9 million. As a result, the net inflow of money transfers over the past year declined by 17% from the previous year to about $715.9 million. ($ 1 - 480.39 drams). -0-