This is the first full scale World BankPublic Expenditure Review (PER) for Armenia. The primaryobjective of the Report was to review the main fiscal trendsin Armenia for the period of 1997-2001 and developrecommendations with respect to further fiscal adjustment,expenditure prioritization, and budget consolidation. Thereport has the following structure. Chapter 1 reviews themain features of the Government's fiscal adjustmenteffort, initiated in the mid 90-s. It is focused on theanalysis of aggregated indicators of fiscal performance suchas deficit, public debt, budget arrears, and tax revenues.Chapter 2 looks at the main expenditure trends in theArmenia consolidated budget for 1997-2001 and makes anassessment of the quality and depth of expenditurerestructuring undertaken in this period. Chapter 3 looks atthe public sector's activities that remainnon-reflected in the regular Government budget, whichincludes extra- budgetary funds, in-kind external grants,subsidies provided by the state-owned companies in theenergy and utility sectors, and operations of the SocialInsurance Fund. Chapter 4 presents in-depth analysis ofprogress made to date in the area of expenditure managementand suggests a draft medium-term action plan to addressidentified weaknesses in budget preparation, presentation,execution, and reporting. Annexes 1 and 2 reflect morespecific recommendations with respect to upgrading budgetmanagement procedures and the regulatory framework. Chapters5-7 review expenditure policies in the main social sectors(health, education, social protection and insurance) andprovide recommendations on: (i) how current expenditurescould be made more efficient; (ii) what should be the maindirection for intra-sectoral expenditure reallocation; and(iii) what should be medium-term targets for an increase inpublic expenditures in these sectors. Chapter 8 estimates aminimum level of budget support in core publicinfrastructure, which would stop deterioration of existingcore assets in respective sectors and prevent the furtheraccumulation of arrears. Sectoral Chapters 5-8 also providerecommendations for policy changes that would facilitate areturn of these sectors to fiscal sustainability . Chapter 9presents an analysis of Armenia's public investment program.