The National Assembly of Armenia approved the report about the 2013 budget execution at a Thursday, June 12 session, ARKA reported.

Sixty-seven deputies backed the report, with 40 voting against and 5 abstaining.

Non-coalition factions of the parliament said the day before that they would vote against the document. Orinats Yerkir faction said it would abstain from the vote as the party was in coalition at the time the budget was adopted.

Total revenues of Armenian government budget for 2013 made up 25.1% of GDP, an increase of 1.4 percentage points from the previous year. Tax receipts were 23.5% of GDP against 22% the year before.

Nominal revenue growth was 13.2% compared to 7.4% in 2012.

The 2013 budget spending grew by 13.6% mainly due to increased current expenditures. At the same time, expenditures on non-financial assets have dropped.

A nominal increase of 16% was recorded on current expenditures with expenditures to GDP ratio at 23.5%; spending on non-financial assets was 3% of GDP in 2013 as compared to 3.3% the year before.

Consequently, budget spending was 90.8% of the target level due to poor program implementation supported from external sources, to savings under certain programs and delays in a number of program procurements.

The budget deficit amounted to AMD 71.5 billion or 1.7% of GDP, against the planned levels of 2.6% and compared to 1.5% in 2012.

Actual budget receipts totaled about AMD 1,071.4 billion in 2013, an increase of 13.2% or AMD 125.2 billion the year before. The target for tax receipts and state duties was 100% met. Off-the-budget revenues of the state organizations reached AMD 31.2 billion. Budget revenues (without off-budget funds) amounted to AMD 1,040.2 billion, revenues to GDP ratio was 25.11%, an increase of 1.44 p.p. compared to the year before.

Tax and state duties receipts accounted for 93.4% and amounted to AMD 1,000.9 billion (taxes – AMD 973.6bln and state duties – AMD 27.3bln).

Actual on-budget expenditures totaled AMD 1,142.9 billion in 2013. Current expenditures accounted for 88.8% of the budget spending and transactions with non-financial assets for 11.2%. Actual budget expenditures totaled AMD 1,006 billion in 2012.

According to the report, foreign trade turnover amounted to USD 5,956.8 million in 2013, an increase of 5.6% compared to the year before. Exports rose by 7.2% to USD 1,480.0 million and imports increased by 5.1% (USD 4,476.8mln).