YEREVAN. – It’s the second time that our government is presenting a budget execution. The peculiarity of last year was that our government had nothing to do with the budget execution because it was about the execution of 2017. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday stated this at the National Assembly committees’ debates on the implementation of the 2018 State Budget of Armenia.

In Pashinyan’s words, this year’s peculiarity is that his government has a partial participation because he has taken helm at the new government in May 2018.

“[But] our government managed to resolve the key issue: the issue of maintenance of macroeconomic stability,” the PM added, in particular.

He stressed that a 5.2% economic growth was recorded in 2018, whereas a 4.5% economic growth was projected in the 2018 budget draft.

“We have had a low inflationary backdrop in 2018,” he said. “We succeeded (...) in curbing inflation, and we had deflation for the year.

“We have a small underperformance in expenditures. (...) but this has to do with several issues, including the fight that has been announced against corruption. (...) the state budget means should be spent maximally effective.”

In the PM’s conviction, Armenia’s macroeconomic stability in 2018 has two main reasons.

“First, (...) there are some established institutions in the Republic of Armenia that have played a role in the period of the revolution [last year in the country],” he explained. Second is the velvet nature of the revolution.

“We [the incumbent Armenian government] have set a task of being extremely balanced.

“The [macroeconomic] stability we have maintained is very important, and the indicators for the four months of this year come to prove that. (...) we have a 7.1% GDP growth for the first quarter. In April the economic activity index was 9.1%. This is the result of joint work.”