Thursday, 17 April 2008
RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan visited the ministries of Agriculture, Justice, Sports and Youth Affairs to introduce to their staffs the newly appointed ministers David Lokyan, Gevorg Danielyan and Armen Grigoryan.
By introducing newly appointed minister David Lokyan to the ministry staff and congratulating him, the head of the government spoke about the challenges facing the sphere and the programs of the Government for the years:
"First of all, I wish to draw your attention on the style of work to embrace by all of us as stipulated in the government program. The priority number one is the introduction of a system of efficient control and this is extremely important. Together with you, we should be able to give a precise description of the goals to achieve because very often we wander by using words such as improve, deepen, further and so on. In these conditions, our work becomes uncontrollable both from inside, and on the part of the society. We should manage, for example, to outline precisely the expected results, to reach them as a result of our work in 2008. The primary goal behind our activities for the next year and the following 5 years should be the achievement of the targets set in the program of RA President Serzh Sargsyan. I mean that these are quite ambitious programs and they will demand significant efforts from all of us. Mr. Lokyan's long experience, his deep knowledge and high skills inspire hope that these programs will be taken into effect.
Serious events are taking place in the worldwide financial and economic sectors and, in particular, in the sphere of agriculture. These events have a direct impact on domestic processes. Food prices have known an unprecedented growth. On the one hand, this poses a serious challenge in terms of tackling the social problems, while on the other hand, it provides an exceptional opportunity for developing domestic agriculture. And we should take advantage of this opportunity. Our task is to increase considerably the level of agricultural produce in 2008 as, on the one hand, this will help solve the problems of our farmers and, on the other hand, it will allow us to meet social challenges. It is not a secret that overall price level in the Republic Armenia is influenced by the cost of agricultural commodities. Their share is quite high in the consumer basket. If we have a successful agricultural year, the social tensions will be considerably mitigated in Armenia as the family budget is sensitive to these costs. I promise you that this sphere will be a priority for us, especially in 2008. Because if we manage to sharply increase the level of agriculture produce and services in 2008, we will be able to essentially ease the burden of our people. Together with you, we must meet those top challenges coming from the worldwide markets in the form of higher prices for farm products. We have already made arrangements with Mr. Lokyan, and we are going to take advantage of the opportunities offered by international programs. I want to inform you that under a presidential decree, Mr. Lokyan has also been appointed as coordinator of national agricultural programs which will make him different from other ministers. This is an additional task, but it means that the minister
