Republican Party of Armenia

 An extraordinary Cabinet meeting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.

The Government approved the bill “On 2014 State Budget of the Republic of Armenia,” according to which the consolidated budget next year will be as follows: revenue – AMD1.161.9 billion (without receipts from cross-budget transfers), expenditure - AMD1.277.5 billion (without receipts from cross-budget transfers), deficit will amount to 115.6 billion drams.

Community budgets in 2014 will be as follows: revenue - AMD112.8 billion (including official Treasury grants), expenditure - AMD117.9 billion. The deficit will amount to 5.1 billion drams.

The Prime Minister noted in this connection, “We are in for a fairly hard work due to several reasons. The first is the deterioration of developing countries’ economic performance, including the forecasts for 2013-2014 made by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, predicting lower economic growth in the Russian Federation, which is obviously an adverse factor for us. This is the first important problem. Second, private investment has been tending downwards in recent years, which means that we need to think about improving the business environment through proper distribution of the tax burden, in order to avoid the risk of extra tax pressure. A feature of this adjusted budget is that we are not going to increase the tax burden in 2014. Third, it seems to be obvious that the accession to the Customs Union will be conducive to a new business environment, and we should offer economic entities the possibility for a smooth implementation of this transition. As of January 1, 2014, pensions will be up 15 percent, with public sector wages to rise by about 40 percent. The aforementioned increases will mainly be supported by those extra 90 billion drams.”

The government approved a package of draft laws on amendments to several laws in the social sphere.

In connection with the establishment of an equitable scale for rising pensions, Tigran Sargsyan said in particular, “We have a group of pensioners entitled to exorbitant pensions - AMD 1 million and above, which has been causing social tensions: we are embarrassed by the fact that most pensioners get 35 thousand drams, while others get one million drams at the same desk. The new scale is meant to smooth this difference in order to solve the problem over time. That is, the growth rate will be lower for high pensions and higher for the low ones.”

The Government established a payroll scale, for the first time offering the National Assembly to establish comparable wages for staff employed in various branches of government.

As part of the package featuring the budget bill, the Government approved a number of draft laws and programs, including a set of measures for the restoration, preservation, reproduction, normal development and use of Lake Sevan ecosystem in 2014, a program of action and a timetable to combat drug abuse and illicit trafficking of narcotic drugs for 2014, a program of development of border regions in 2014 etc.

The above draft laws will be sent to the National Assembly for approval in the manner established by law.