Budget to suffer losses in case of joining Customs Union

In 2014 Armenia’s state budget revenues and expenditures will amount to 1 trillion 227 billion AMD and 1 trillion 145 billion AMD respectively, according to the RA Finance Ministry.

‘Haykakan Zhamanak’ says that the government took notice of these indices yesterday. When asked by the paper’s correspondent yesterday if revenues of the Armenian state budget would grow or decline in case of joining the Customs Union, Deputy Finance Minister Pavel Safarian - who presented the indices at the government session – said: “These factors have not yet been taken into account in the draft budget presented today”.

“It is planned that Armenia will join the Customs Union on January 1, 2014, and in that case the state budget revenues will undergo substantial changes, to put it mildly, because the same customs regime will operate at the Armenian border as at Russian borders. For example, about a half of VAT collected in Armenia is currently collected at the border, on imported goods. VAT is not collected at borders of the Customs Union. In other words, the indices presented yesterday were not final,” the paper writes.