Republic of Armenia - Fiscal Consolidation and Recovery : Synthesis Report

World Bank

World Bank

关键词: ALLOCATION;    ANALYTICAL CAPACITY;    ANNUAL RATE;    ARREARS;    ASSET MANAGEMENT;   

RP-ID  :  62587

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Armenia's structural reforms since1999 have led to a strong economic record, including lowfiscal deficits and declining public debt over thepre-crisis decade. Between 2001 and 2008 Gross DomesticProduct (GDP) grew at an average annual rate of 12 percentand poverty fell from over 50 percent to about 28 percent ofthe population. Over this period of rapid growth, prudentfiscal management contained fiscal deficits between 0 and2.5 percent of GDP and helped to reduce public debt from 49percent to 16 percent of GDP. This fiscal headroom allowedthe Government to respond to the crisis with anappropriately large fiscal stimulus. When GDP contracted bymore than 14 percent in 2009 and total revenues fellsharply, nominal public spending was increased by 13 percentto shore up the domestic economy and protect the poor andvulnerable. Despite the severity of the crisis, theGovernment maintained a sound macroeconomic framework whilecontinuing to undertake social protection expenditures tomitigate the impact of the crisis on the most vulnerablepeople. This was done by securing sizable externalfinancing. The fiscal deficit rose to 7.8 percent of GDP in2009 and the public debt to GDP ratio rose from 16 percentin 2008 to 40.2 percent. Efforts at fiscal consolidationreduced the fiscal deficit to 5.6 percent of GDP in 2010,but public debt is projected to reach 42 percent of GDP in2011.The report is in two volumes: a synthesis volume and abackground volume. The synthesis volume summarizes themacroeconomic context of Armenia (chapter one), analyzes therecent debt dynamics and its implication for fiscalconsolidation (chapter two, then assess the revenuepotential the Government can tap (chapter three) whileensuring key growth-sustaining and poverty-reducingexpenditures are maintained (chapter four). The backgroundvolume provides more details on the assessment of the taxpotential of the mining sector (chapter one), and thoroughlyanalyzes the efficiency of spending on the public sectorwage bill (chapter two), health (chapter three) andeducation (chapter four).