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Draft amendments to the Law on State Debt were debated in Armenia’s National Assembly today. During debates deputy Stepan Margaryan from opposition ‘Prosperous Armenia’ faction expressed his perplexity over the plans to abruptly raise the threshold of government debt to 60%, while there is an opportunity for a $1.5 billion loan. He asked a question about possible consequences of that step.

The main speaker, Deputy Finance Minister Atom Janjughazyan assured him that the change will not have any impact on the state debt and that the issue of increasing state debt is not being discussed.

“The change concerns harmonization of the restrictions used,” he noted.

S. Margaryan said in response: “Then it is impossible to understand why you presented the bill for urgent discussion – if there is no problem of getting a new loan?

For his part, opposition ARF-Dashanktsutyun faction deputy Artsvik Minasyan said that the law should be completely revised. In his words, the bill causes negative expectations. He urged deputies to remove the document from the agenda without holding a second reading.