The activities of the government of Armenia need to be assessed based on the results recorded after financial resources are used, not based on the amount of used financial resources. This is what Minister of Finance Atom Janjughazyan said during discussions on performance of the 2019 state budget in parliament today.

According to the minister, only in this case will it be possible to assess the level of effectiveness of the government’s activities. Janjughazyan stated that in 2020 the country is facing an unprecedented crisis that was caused by the coronavirus pandemic and as a result of which Armenia is engaging significant amounts of borrowed funds. He also didn’t rule out the holding of talks “for engagement of additional non-binding funds”.

The minister brought the decision of the World Bank as an example, stating that the World Bank has delayed payment of the interest rate of the nearly $950,000,000 that Armenia has taken. In this context, the previous decision on applying additional annual 1.7% interest rates for several loans granted by the International Development Association to Armenia has been delayed for a year due to the joint efforts of Armenia and the World Bank.

Based on the data of the World Bank and the Ministry of Finance of Armenia, as a result, Armenia will save nearly $13,000,000 in its state budget.