YEREVAN. – The 2016 State Budget of Armenia specifies that this year’s tax revenues and duties shall together amount to 1 trillion 129 billion drams, according to Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper.

“This is 62 billion drams more than the actual indicator last year. And this means that the taxes and duties collected in the corresponding periods of the year shall exceed the volumes collected in the same periods last year by at least 5.8 percent. 

“[But] if we spread the trends recorded in the first half of this year onto the whole year, the 2016 State Budget will be underperformed by 2.4 percent.

“Unfortunately, it should be noted that this is probably the best-case scenario. The underperformance will actually be greater, and there are all grounds for such forecast.

“Our already sleepy economy has started to yawn wider, and in all likelihood, it will soon fall into a deep sleep,” wrote Haykakan Zhamanak.