YEREVAN, September 26. /ARKA/. Armenia’s foreign debt amounts to $5.4 billion now, Vardan Aramyan, the country’s finance minister, said Monday at a news conference.

In his words, Armenia’s public debt made up 56.6% of the GDP in 2016, and is projected to reach 58.8% by the end of 2017, which also depends on foreign exchange rates.

“In 2016, the public debt totaled $5.9 billion, where foreign debt amounted to $4.8 billion,” he said. “Foreign debt is expected to grow to $5.4 billion in 2017.”

The minister said that Armenia is still among countries with not heavy debt burden and that the authorities will make every effort to improve ‘the zone of comfort’.

“We’ll conduct consulting with IMF experts to lessen and stabilize the public debt and to return it to so called zone of comfort,” he said.

Aramyan also said that Armenia pursues a reasonable tax and budgetary police and mentioned the fact that Moody’s and Fitch rating agencies left ratings for Armenia unchanged.

According to official figures, Armenia’s collective public debt surged by another $60 million in July to over $6.2 billion. The country’s external debt amounted to $4.985 billion, having increased by $42.7 million in one month. About $4.417.5 billion of the external debt was owed by the Armenian government (an increase of $35.1 million), and another $567.4 million were owed by the Central Bank (an increase of $7.6 million).

Armenia's domestic debt at the end of July stood at $1.216.6 billion, an increase of $18 million. Some $1.081.9 billion were owed to resident holders of government bonds, $125.6 million were owed to holders of government bonds in foreign currency and $9 million were owed as government guarantees.
The government expects that by yearend the overall public debt will amount to $6.245 billion, up from $5.849 billion in late 2016). -0---