YEREVAN, APRIL 22, ARMENPRESS. The Cabinet approved the 2020 government budget performance report for submitting to parliament.

Finance Minister Atom Janjughazyan, speaking at the Cabinet meeting, noted that in 2019 the Armenian economy experienced growth. “The Armenian economy grew 7,6%, this created opportunities to change the goal of fulfilling obligations. The 2019 growth enabled to revise the resources envisaged for spending policy,” he said, adding that in 2020 the government received the fastest assistance from the IMF given the projection of decline.

According to Janjughazyan, albeit the government had projected economic drop in the crisis period, all assumed obligations were fulfilled. At the same time, he admitted that shortcomings were inevitable.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted that there were many speculations regarding the 2020 budget in relation to the money transferred by the Hayastan All Armenian fund. “Conditioned by the martial law, the government implemented allocations of nearly 120 billion drams, out of which 52 billion drams is the money allocated by the fund,” Pashinyan said, adding that the fund’s board of trustees has expressed confidence that the money was spent in a targeted way. PM Pashinyan expressed gratitude to all donors and emphasized that donations during the 2020 war alone amount to nearly 70% of all the money which the fund collected since its creation.

He added that the government and the fund will implement a 110 billion dram project in Artsakh in the next three years. Pashinyan said the project is bigger than the fund has ever done in 29 years in Artsakh.

The PM emphasized that they will scrutinize the 120 billion dram military spending in a closed-door format so that the subject is once and for all closed.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan