On January 19th, the World Bank ratified the second $20 million loan to Armenia and the framework of “Support to Reduce Poverty” (SRP). It is based on the institutional reforms and policies of the strategic program of poverty reduction by the government. The loan will be given to Armenia to be paid back within 40-years and for a 10-year advantage term. The SRP program will be implemented in four directions – improvement of the macroeconomic discipline and governance strengthening, development of competitive environment and strengthening of property rights, restraint of social and environmental risks as well as realization of economies of rural areas.
Starting from the end of the previous year the WB, in collaboration with other international bodies decided to finance the fight against bird flu. The coordinator of the foreign relations of the WB, Yerevan branch, Vigen Sargsyan says that, those activities unfortunately should be long term. Armenia should be technically equipped in order to be able to fight against this disease. The RA government presented to the WB a proposal in the amount of $4 million (according to Sargsyan this figure is not yet final). However, before the approval of the program to prevent the dissemination of bird flu at present the RA government uses the money anticipated by the WB Agricultural Development program, which will later be reimbursed.
The WB collaborates with the RA government in the sphere of structural reforms as well. In particular, reforms are planned for aviation and management of “Armenian Railways”. “Armenia is potentially able to attract more tourists and increase the volume of foreign product turn-out. Therefore, we signify that development of civil aviation,” says the economist of the WB Yerevan office, Gohar Gyulumyan.
The WB is also planning the investment of the self-tax-payment system in the customs and tax fields of Armenia. They will later enable the decrease in the connection between the taxpayer and tax collector which will result in a decrease in the level of corruption in the system. Gyulumyan explained, according to the planned changes, particularly the tax-paying entrepreneurs will not go to the tax office to “solve” their issues, but will present the results of their activity to the tax collectors in the form of reports. The tax office in its turn, will conduct supervision on the activity of many of the entrepreneurs at random.
Gulumyan has not spoken about the expected increase of the gas price. She only mentioned that, surveys are going to be conducted in our region, and only after that it will become clear “what kind of influence the gas price increase will have on the macro-economic indexes and the poverty of the country according to different scenarios.”