YEREVAN, April 23. /ARKA/. Armenian banks and credit organizations have provided individuals and legal entities with "loan holidays" worth 61.8 billion drams, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote in a Facebook posting on Thursday.

He said as of April 23, Armenian banks and credit organizations have provided 'loan holidays' to 430 thousand citizens worth 20.3 billion drams, as well as to 12,400 legal entities in the amount of 41.5 billion drams.

The Armenian government, in general, has approved 14 measures to offset the economic consequences of the coronavirus outbreak. Six of them are designed to assist agriculture, tourism, SMEs, microbusiness and other sectors, and eight are designed to show financial support to different groups of population, including university students.

Armenian declared a 30-day state of emergency on March 16 in a bid to stop the spread of Covid-19, imposing also stringent restrictions on the movement of people and banning also some types of economic activity. On April 13, the government extended the state of emergency for another month and reopened also some businesses.

As of April 23, some 1,523 confirmed cases of coronavirus were recorded in Armenia; 659 patients have recovered and 24 people have died. ($1 - 479.81 drams) .-- 0-