YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 13, NOYAN TAPAN. At the November 13 special session, the RA National Assembly completed the regular stage of discussing the 2009 draft state budget. The NA speaker Hovik Abrahamian announced that the discussion is interrupted for at least 4 days, and within the next 24 hours deputies, factions and standing committees must officially submit their proposals to the NA staff that will present these proposals to the government. In his closing speech the minister of finance Tigran Davtian assured the parliament that the "budget is realistic and adequate to the challenges of next year", and the government has enough opportunities to fulfil the budget. He said that the coming year will not be easy for the world economy but Armenia tries to be as well-prepared as possible when entering the year 2009. In particular, according to T. Davtian, the envisaged deficit of the budget is quite low: it makes up 1% of GDP. In case of necessity it may be theoretically increased up to 3% of GDP which will allow to attract additional 80 billion drams. Besides, the budget envisages a reserve fund, the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) has its reserve funds, and there are also opportunities of receiving concessionary credits from international organizations.

---