The Nagorno Karabakh National Assembly continues to discuss the 2007 state budget plan. The plan was presented by the Karabakh government on December 1. According to the plan, the income section of the budget plan will be 31,072.6 million drams and expenses will make up 33058.6 million drams. The GDP in 2007 will be 69.5 billion drams (in 2004 it was 42.8 billion drams). Back then the dollar exchange rate was 532 drams, but the calculations were based on 357 drams. The minimum salary will go up from 15,000 drams to 20,000, while the salary rate for the community service officials will go up from 30,000 drams to 35,000. Based on the plan, state salaries will increase by 20%, however there won’t be a rise in pensions; the pension will remain 4,250 drams, and the price for one year of insurance will be 230 drams, compared to 180 drams in 2006. Next year, it is foreseen to provide monthly financial aid to families with 1-16 children who have rehabilitated in the Shahumyan and Kashatagh regions (each child will receive 2000 drams). 58% of the state budget will be directed towards social projects. Nearly 5 billion drams will be provided to the education and sciences sector, 1 billion drams for rehabilitation; it’s foreseen to rehabilitate nearly 220 families and 800,700,000 drams will be provided for construction of homes. The volumes of capital construction will increase next year. It’s foreseen to spend 9.3 billion drams, of which 1 billion 144 million will be directed towards the construction of apartment homes (864 million in Stepanakert). Recently, during a session with the production infrastructures committee of the National Assembly, Minister of Urbanization of Nagorno Karabakh Marat Hakobjanyan said that the construction of a building with 45 apartments foreseen for the families of soldiers who died in the Artsakh war and the handicapped is almost complete. During the session, leader of the “Homeland” faction Arayik Harutyunyan discussed the expenses for a building, which will soon be constructed. Harutyunyan was interested to know why it was foreseen to provide 237 million drams for the construction of that building in the first place and now it is 635 million. In response to that, Minister of Urbanization of Karabakh Marat Hakobjanyan said that that was the plan from the beginning and the expenses for the building construction increased after the changes in the plan. As a matter of fact, in 2007, 398 million drams will be provided for the construction of that building. 1074 million drams will be spent for road construction and most of the money will be spent for the reconstruction of the Karmir Shuka-Sos road section of the Martuni region.
These are preliminary data because the plan is still being discussed and the deputies still have to make proposals to the government. The first reading of the Karabakh budget at the National Assembly will be on December 20 and the second one will be on December 27.
