YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 27, NOYAN TAPAN. The 2008 draft state budget's discussion, which was interrupted on November 15, resumed at the special session of the National Assembly (NA) invited on November 23 on the initiative of the Armenian government. According to the main speaker - the RA minister of finance and economy Vardan Khachatrian, the government received 331 proposals regarding the preliminary version of the draft state budget, including 225 proposals from the NA factions, 13 - from the NA standing committees, and 93 proposals - from MPs. Proposals were mainly related to expenditures and envisaged additional financing of 21.6 billion drams. The government considered 144 propsals or 43.5% of their number as acceptable. Explanations were provided to 48 proposals, 139 proposals were rejected. On its own intitiative, the government increased tax revenues by 2 billion drams, as a result of which their ratio to GDP will make 17% against 16.9% in the preliminary version. As a result, the government submitted the 2008 draft state budget with the revenues of 746 bln drams, expenditures of 822 bln drams and deficit of 76 bln drams to the National Assembly for approval. The expenditures and revenues grew by 1.3 bln drams as compared with the preliminary version of the draft. V. Khachatrian also said that the settlement exchange rates of foreign currencies to be used in budgetary functions were changed. In particular, the settlement exchange rate of a US dollar was fixed at 325.16 drams instead of the preliminary version of 336.48 drams, while that of a euro was fixed at 469.76 drams instead of 461.15 drams. The money envisaged for compensation of sums deposited with the former USSR savings bank has been increased by 30% in the final version of the state budget as compared with this year. 1.3 bln drams will be allocated from the 2008 state budget for this purpose. The speaker of the RA National Assembly Tigran Torosian expressed an opinion that "there cannot be any substantiation or approach for voting against this budget, although some deputies will probably vote against it". The "Heritage" faction has already stated that it cannot vote fot the presented draft state budget, which is risky in terms of its execution and proposes temporary solutions to some social problems. The "Orinats Yerkir" faction has stated that it will abstain from voting because taking into account the gaps in the draft budget and the unsolved problems, it cannot vote for it but at the same time it cannot vote against a 65% increase in pensions and solution of some social problems.

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