YEREVAN, MARCH 13, NOYAN TAPAN. The IMF's forecasts that 1.5% economic recession will be recorded in Armenia in 2009 are realistic, the minister of finance Tigran Davtian said at the briefing after the March 12 sitting of the government. "We have planned Armenia's budget with quite a low deficit - below 1%, we have quite a small foreign debt, and its ratio to GDP does not exceed 14-15%. It means that we have an opportunity to increase the budget deficit and attract additional foreign sources for deficit financing," T. Davtian said, adding that the negotiations with the World Bank, the U.S. and Russia on attraction of financial resources have finished. It was mentioned the tax revenue collection in January and February 2009 declined by 5 billion drams and 10 billion drams respectivley as compared with the same months of 2008. However, according to the minister, there have been some positive changes in March.

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