YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 13, NOYAN TAPAN. This year Armenia's tax and budgetary policy has been efficient. Tax revenues grew by about 20% in the first eight months of 2006 compared with the same period of last year. Hasan al-Atrash, head of the Armenian mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said this during a round table on September 13. According to him, the Armenian government is procceding along the path that will allow it to achieve the 2006 target index of the overall budget deficit of 2.3% of GDP. He said that the IMF mission and the Armenian authorities have come to an agreement on the new target indices in 2007 and those of the medium-tem economic program. Based on this, in 2007 GDP real growth is envisaged to make 9%, inflation - 4%, the overall budget deficit - 2.4% of GDP. It was noted that the IMF mission agreed with the Armenian government that the target budget deficit indices will be executed by raising the tax revenues rather than cutting the expenditures.

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