Armenia"s State Debt Increases by Two Times in Five Years

Yerevan/05.06.13/Turan-ArmInfo: Armenia's external debt continues to grow, reaching $3.6 billion, and exceeding by more than two times the foreign exchange reserves of the country.

Five years ago, foreign gold-currency reserves covered more than half of the foreign debt, but today these reserves do not cover even half of the debt, the best case is about 44%.

At the end of April this year, the share of GDP external debt is about 37%.

Experts believe that the specific debt load is distributed as $1,200 per capita, and over the past five years it has grown by more than two times (2009 - $ 550.) If we take into account the high migration, due to which the population of Armenia is much lower than the official data, the external debt per capita exceeds $1,800.

In the structure of the external debt, more than 86%, or $3.1 billion is the government’s, while the remaining, almost 14%, or $552 million is the Central Bank share.

The total debt of Armenia, on May 1, 2013, amounted to 1.7 trillion drams or $4.3 billion.

The share of government bonds, in the domestic state debt, exceeds 98%, and the remaining almost 2% -  are trade credits.

On 1 January, 2013 Armenia’s total national debt was 1.8 trillion drams or $4.4 billion, and the external debt totaled $3.7 billion, while domestic debt was $ 631 million. -02В-