Laura Tuck, World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia, arrived in Armenia on November 9 to complete her first official visit to Armenia. During her three-day visit Tuck met with the Armenian top officials. One of the main news announced by Laura Tuck is that World Bank has approved a $75 million worth loan for Armenia.The maturity of the loan is 25 years with a grace period of 14.5 years.
As the official website of World Bank says the allocation of the loan is done in the frames of the three-phase Development Policy Program. The program’s strategic goal is to promote Armenia’s job creation process which is one of the main objectives for Armenia’s further progress.
Further the official website gives a detailed description of the project. The description states that the loan aims to strengthen the business environment, improve access to credit, improve efficiency and transparency of the civil service, expand social protection, and improve fiscal space and the management of public infrastructure and environmental resources in Armenia.
It’s interesting to note that the World Bank’s active portfolio in Armenia is US$ 517.7 million and the total External Debt in Armenia increased to 3902.10 USD Million in 2013 from 3737.93 USD Million in 2012. External Debt of Armenia constitutes about 36% of Armenia’s GDP.
Laura Tuck highlighted that the Bank regularly conducts monitoring in the country to make its assistance maximum realistic and in-depth. However as I stated in my previous post usually the results of monitorings aren’t available for public, thus for ordinary citizens it is really difficult to understand whether Armenia’s growing external debt is making their lives better.