Monday, 26 November 2007
Today a session of the Council of Armenian Development Agency CJSC has been held in the Office of Government, presided at by Council Chairman, RA Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan.
The meeting has discussed the report on the work done over the past 10 months of 2007, the 2008 action plan and the budget of the agency, questions relating to Armenia's participation in Shanghai Expo-2010 world exposition, as well as several organizational matters.
Before proceeding to the agenda, Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan congratulated the newly appointed ADA Director General Tigran Davtyan and the new members of the Council and expressed hope that the overall performance of the agency would be improved thanks to new approaches and changes in its operations. "Any change is pointless if it fails to improve the work of the agency," - the Prime Minister said and wished the agency every success in the fulfillment its mission and the accomplishment of the obligations assumed.
Before the start of his report, ADA Director General informed that the talks conducted with the World Bank and the Dutch Government had been completed with success late last week. As a result, a USD 2 million-worth grant will be made available to the Agency under next 4-year assistance programs and for effective realization of its ongoing activities. According to Mr. Davtyan, the World Bank and the Government of the Netherlands have already signed a relevant arrangement to be submitted to the RA Government in due course.
With reference to agenda item 1 concerning the report on the work done over the past ten months, the ADA Director General reported that the Agency had carried out work in several directions: attraction of foreign investments, increase of country ratings, implementation of export-conducive programs, assistance with the decision of questions associated with the improvement of the business environment and the development of information technologies (IT) and high technologies.
Among the numerous actions carried out during the accounting period, the ADA Director General singled out and reported the most volumetric and large ones, emphasizing the Armenian-Canadian industrial exhibition held in Toronto early this year under the motto "Made in Armenia," the Armenian -Austrian business forum held last March in the framework of the session of the Armenian-Austrian intergovernmental commission. Another action was carried out late last March, namely the Armenian-French forum held in Issy-les-Moulineaux with an IT potential development agenda involving the Armenian and French companies concerned, at which a number of programs were discussed and mutual arrangements reached. Later in July, the ARMTECH exhibition was organized in San Francisco (USA, State of California) which was dedicated to information and high technologies. As informed Mr. Davtyan, "Digitech" exhibition was held in October followed by the Armenian-Belgian business forum held in early November in the framework of the RA President's visit to Brussels during which a number of arrangements were made with Belgian companies, based on which these companies are expected to pay a reciprocated visit to Armenia this December. Another important forum was held in Finland in the frameworks of RA President's visit to that country.
The ADA Director General reported that besides the mentioned actions, numerous other events and business meetings have been organized for the last 10 months inside the country, among which
