YEREVAN. – An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission will soon arrive in Armenia, reported Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper.

“It shall study the [country’s state] budget implementation during this year, and the plans for next year’s budget.

“The visit of the IMF mission will be quite interesting, and the Government [of Armenia] impatiently ‘awaits’ it.

“The problem is that the government will present indicators which will not satisfy, to put it mildly, the mission. In all likelihood, the heads of the [IMF] mission will give a positive assessment in public remarks; they will say that our government ‘is withstanding the difficulties,’ etc. But the assessments will be rather harsh during non-public talks.

“You shall not doubt that this organization, which provides the main assistance to Armenia’s financial system, will demand from the government to increase tax revenues and reduce budget spending; [but] this is still an unsolvable problem for the government,” Haykakan Zhamanak wrote.