The International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposed the government of Armenia to increase the amount of benefit provided to the most vulnerable families in the country, the IMF Mission Chief to Armenia Mark Horton said, the Armenian newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak reported.
He said that this initiative of the IMF is due to the possible increase of tariffs for electricity and gas.
"Horton did not specify how much the tariffs will rise, but he said that it can occur in the summer months," the newspaper said. "At the same time, the chief of the mission said that they have information about the negotiations taking place between the Armenian government and the Russian Gazprom about the possible lowering of the tariff on gas supplied to the country."
However, the newspaper said that the IMF does not know whether these negotiations will lead to any results.
IMF also hasn't yet calculated the possible increase of the gas, electricity tariffs, and how it will affect the inflation in the country, however Horton said that soon the inflation's indicators will be higher than it is provided by the state budget.