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A joint sitting of the Armenian National Assembly Standing Committees on Health and Social Affairs and Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs has kicked off, with the execution of the 2019 state budget in the healthcare and social sectors on the agenda.

At the beginning of the sitting, Minister of Finance Atom Janjughazyan said that in 2019 the total state expenditure stood at 1 trillion 629 billion drams, or 92.4% of the adjusted program.

"This figure exceeds the 2018 numbers by around 182 billion drams. We should take into account the fact that such an execution is also conditioned by external assistance programs, which have a share in the structure of our state expenditures,” the minister said.

Janjughazyan said that in 2019 the Ministry of Health spent 97.6 billion drams allocated from the state budget, or 96% of the adjusted program. At the same time, the initial program was about 89 billion drams.

"The execution is more than 100% compared to the initial program. It should be noted that the allocations to the healthcare sector grew by 22% compared to 2018. In total, the ministry implemented 64 measures to achieve the final results of 12 budget programs,” the minister stressed.

Janjughazyan also said that the budget of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs amounted to 444.5 billion drams according to the initial program, but during 2019 it was adjusted to 465.5 billion drams. In fact, nearly 97.5% of the allocated funds were used.

"But this doesn't mean that any envisaged payment failed to be made. There is no obligation that was not fulfilled. In total, 121 events were implemented,” the minister said.