YEREVAN, OCTOBER 25, ARMENPRESS. The government projects construction and industry to be the main segment guiding economic growth in 2022, unlike the service sector in 2021, the minister of finance Tigran Khachatryan said at a joint parliamentary committee session debating the 2022 state budget draft.

He said that as of now the government’s forecast for 2021’s economic growth is around 6,5%, and 7% is the target placed in the basis of the 2022 budget. Khachatryan said the projections are accompanied by rather high inflation backgrounds of the current year.

“For next year we expect the inflation environment to return to the range defined by law, thus ensuring a more stable macro-environment,” he said.

“If this year the services were the main guiding sector for economic growth, next year it will be construction and industry. While in terms of expenditure components there will be greater impact with final consumption and export impacts.”

“In 2022 there will be a complete return to tax-budgetary rules. Current spending will not exceed tax revenues, and capital spending will be at least not less that the size of the state budget’s deficit,” he added.

The government projects capital spending to comprise 4,5% of the GDP in 2022.

Meanwhile, the Central Bank Vice Governor Nerses Yeritsyan called the 2022 state budget draft “ambitious”.

“Overall we can say that the 2022 state budget program is rather ambitious, and compared to the government’s mid-term spending program implies a significant acceleration of economic growth and potential,” he said, adding that government spending policy will be aimed at encouraging growth. 

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan