RoA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan attended the opening of a two day international conference entitled "The Influence of the global crisis on Armenia: short-term and long-term prospects" in Yerevan today. Participants discussed the short-term and long-term perspectives that will allow Armenia to overcome the crisis. PM Sargsyan assured those in attendance that the 2009 RoA budget would be executed due to loans from international organizations that will help soften the financial crunch. PM Sargsyan said that the Government does not intend to reduce the 940 billion dram expenditure section of the budget. He also laid out three possible scenarios for the nation's economy. "First of all, the perspectives of Armenia’s economy under the crisis have been assessed. "We should have at least three scenarios at hand. According to the first scenario, we’ll have a 9.5% fall. The second predicts a 16% fall, the third one envisages a 20% decline." This means that the budget deficit will be unprecedented. It will be at least twice as large as that of the past years. According to Tigran Sargsyan, the main financial sources to cover the deficit of the state budget are the loans of the Asian Development Bank (USD 70mln) and the World Bank (USD 60mln). According to PM Sargsyan, the government also intends to spend 24bln AMD from the