The Armenian government provides an external debt to GDP ratio of 50% in 2016, which is considered as a risky threshold by the experts. Lragir.am interviewed Artak Manukyan, Economist and Expert of Transparency International Anticorruption Center (TIAC). He addressed the reasons for debt increase and the ineffectiveness of the loan expenses. In the opinion of Artak Manukyan it would be effective if the loans considerably change Armenia’s economic model.

According to Artak Manukyan for a country aspiring to be knowledge-based economy, Armenia should grow more rapidly than an average world economy. Whereas 2.2% GDP growth expected in 2016 is small, since average world economic growth is about 3.5%. Armenia is less competitive against world development. This is one reason for debt increase.

Second, increase in loan burden is the implication of inflated statistics base and has nothing to do with reality. There are problems regarding income part of the budget. To avoid talks on sequestrating, the problems are moved to 2016. Loans are taken to ease the problem. They move from one pocket to another, leaving the tax burden on the society. More loans for ensuring economic growth are tried to be attracted by means of the same corrupt economic model. However, even after taking loans the economic growth is far from being compared with other countries. Moreover, those countries do not take so much loans.