YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 16, ARMENPRESS. Armenia’s 2023 state budget envisages allocating 509 billion drams to the defense sector. The growth in defense spending comprises 113% compared to 2018, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during the debate of the 2023 state budget draft in the Parliament.

“We are planning the tax revenue part of the budget of 2023 to be 2 trillion 204 billion drams, which is 946 billion drams or 75.1% more than the figure of 2018. 4.5 years later, after passing through a war and coronavirus, we are proposing a budget which is 75% more than the budget of 2018. Moreover, the defense spending is envisaged to be 509 billion drams, the increase is 113% compared to 2018, in other words, more than double, and the increase against 2022 is 47%”, the PM stated.

Prime Minister Pashinyan reminded that the salaries of servicemen will be at least doubled through voluntary certification. He added that there will be cases when the salaries will even be tripled.

“With this we are transitioning to a professional army, we are doing that transition”, he said.

The PM also spoke about the military education reforms. The young people, who will choose military profession, will be appointed after graduating the military educational institution and will receive an apartment at that moment.

“In order to improve our security needs we have serious issues to solve. I am asking to maximally refrain from revealing information that could contain classified data. We can state that the army reform process has started and will gain new momentum each month”, Pashinyan said.