YEREVAN, April 9. /ARKA/. The issue of increasing Armenia's public debt is on the government's agenda, however, the cabinet will consider attracting a new loan only if necessary, Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan stated at a press conference on Thursday.

"Of course, the government is thinking about this; there are even specific scenarios, but at the moment I would not want to voice specific numbers or dates," Grigoryan said.

According to him, the unpredictable development of the situation in the world make government take more thoughtful steps.
"Based on the current situation, caused by the coronavirus outbreak, I do not see problems with increasing public debt. Nevertheless, it is too early to give any estimates, but we need to have it on mind," Grigoryan said.

According to the National Statistics Committee, Armenia's total public debt at the end of December 2019 amounted to $7 324.167 billion. The external public debt stood at about $5.8 billion. Of that amount about $5.4 billion were owed by the government. The Central Bank's debt stood at $489.317 million. The domestic debt was worth the equivalent of about 1.6 billion.

Armenian declared a 30-day state of emergency on March 16 to contain the spread of coronavirus. A week later it imposed stringent restrictions on free movement of people and banned also some types of economic activity until April 12 inclusive.

As of April 9, some 921 confirmed cases of coronavirus were reported in the country, some 138 patients were said to have recovered and ten people died. -0-