A wide-ranging debate took place today at the "De-Facto Club" as to whether the ROA's 2009 budget includes sufficient measures to ward-off various impacts of the global economic crisis. Participating in the debate were Vahagn Khatchatryan, a representative of the Armenian National Congress (HAK) and Artzvik Minasyan of the ARF. According to Mr. Minasyan it isn't only the state budget that should be seen as a strategic document. "The government declared a list of priority measures intended to lessen the negative impacts of the economic crisis," he noted but saw some uncertainties in these measures. "It is not clear to our faction where the $300,000 million in equivalent drams in assistance funds that they are trying to pump into helping small and medium -sized business will be going and what are the expectaions?" Mr. Minasyan also refuted the HAK statement that no serious debate took place in the National Assembly regarding the economic crisis and that the budget was passed on discussions that took place in the summer. "Debates and hearings took place," alleged Mr. Minasyan, who crediited such statements to a lack of information. Vahagn Khachatryan tried to convince his opponent that he indeed was informed as to what was or wasn't debated, stating that he had read the pertinent information in the National Assembly's website. At this point Mr. Minasyan jumped-in and said that it wasn't possible to read the full details of the budget debates in the website. Mr. Khachatryan went on to state that no measures had been taken to reform the tax sphere and, turning to Mr. Minasyan, stated that, "You do not want to protect small and medium businesses, you'd rather just raise your hand in compliance." Economist Khachatryan proposed a "salvation program" given that Armenia hasn't weathered the first wave of the crisis. "The regime thought that the economic tsunami wouldn't reach Armenia since the Armenian financial sector isn't integrated into global financial system and because Armenia's economy is small. They also hoped that if we didn't have gold then currency measures would be enough."