Tuesday, 19 April 2011
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan’s speech at the first Armenian-Russian interregional conference entitled “To New Achievements of Interregional Cooperation in the Armenian-Russian Allied Relations.
Dear Mr. President,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Let me, on behalf of the RA government, greet the participants of the first Armenian-Russian interregional conference and say words of gratitude to those, who are involved in all the aspects of organization of this truly remarkable event.
Today’s conference, which is attended by 300 representatives of RF 17 Regions, is one of the largest events that have ever been held within the framework of Armenian-Russian relations. It is a display of great achievements that we are now pleased to register in the field of our countries’ cooperation.
Dear Colleagues,
The global financial crisis forced us to reinvent our countries’ economic situation. The anti-crisis program, developed and implemented by the government, has had obvious results. We managed to fulfill all the social obligations, moreover, to increase the social payments to the certain social groups of the population. The state has initiated a number of investment projects, has provided sufficient benefits to small and medium businesses and has shown a major support to the enterprises, which have had temporary difficulties with the international markets. The modern history shows that our countries have always been side by side and have supported each other in difficult situations. This was clearly manifested during the financial crisis. The loan, provided by the RF government in the shortest term, helped to minimize the consequences of the crisis. The crisis revealed the structural problems that don’t let us speak out about overcoming it thoroughly. Moreover, it became obvious that the old growth model, which is based on a few basic economic branches, can not be sustainable. The crisis became some kind of a unique divide that separates the old and new world. Those worldwide changes, which were once evident for the specialists, are now visible to everyone.
The thinking activities appear as basic process in the modern world. Every human being is faced with a problem of finding his identity; intelligence becomes a main asset and the issue of self-identification, insurance of the rights and freedom comes out. The RA government’s economic strategy is a response to the above-mentioned challenges. We have defined 7 reform packages for us, which lead us to the innovative economy.
First Package: for the first time in the last 20 years, the government has turned to a tool, such as state industrial policy. The diversification of the economy, the development of the export to a long-term sustainable growth is the basis of stability and innovative potential. Nowadays, qualitatively new products and services are being created at the terms of those branches. The government, despite the severe budgetary limitations, leads a preferential policy towards the enterprises that anew their technologies, finances the innovative projects of creating new products.
Second Package: the agricultural development is a direction of no less importance. Armenia is implementing a plan of agricultural modernization and increasing the issuance volumes of organic food. This in its turn means investment of such agricultural technologies that allow maintaining the food on the highest environmental protection level. Today we don’t face the problem of selling the agricultural product, but of producing and processing the required volumes. Without innovative technologies this problem will not be solved.
Third Package: It is aimed to the formation of an informational society. Armenia has already been considered to be a country with a great potential in IT sector. The pledge of the success of this industry is the contribution a multi-layer internet to all the corners of the country, provision of computer access for the underprivileged classes of the population, as well as the regulation of competition policy in the field. Today the government has reached the fact that the prices of internet services in RA have been reduced greatly and are now competitive in the region. One of the key components of the reform package is the creation of e-government projects.
Fourth Package: This package aims to the creation of favorable conditions for the running of the business. The rules should be simple, understandable and inform for everyone. Only last year 30% of all types of licenses have been revoked. Registration of enterprises has become possible to be done within 15 minutes, Tax and Customs e-declaration system has been set, unified service centers have been created, the frequency of the reports has been reduced, and much more.
Fifth Package: This package is related to large infrastructural projects. Large scale projects such as a construction of a new nuclear power station, north-south road as well as the construction of the railway with Iran are launched. These projects will be implemented at a private-public partnership basis and will create new opportunities for business development.
Sixth Package: Aims to the improvement of our citizens’ life quality. It is, perhaps, one of the largest projects of our government. It includes the pension reform, health sector reform, which are intended to target the use of state resources and ensure the creation of a modern ontological center, using the new technologies.
“Luys” Foundation has been created under the auspices of the RA president, and it finances the Armenian students’ education in the world’s best universities. Returning home, they will hold their place in the economy of Armenia, science and education spheres. The key of the quality education is the availability of professional lecturers.
Seventh Package: It is aimed to the proportionate development of the regions. For the first time, we have developed and implemented a comparative evaluation methodology of the socio-economic development of regions and communities. In the near future, according to our Russian colleagues’ experience, a state investment foundation for regional development will be created, the funds of which will be directed to the implementation of the regional large-scale projects.
RF plays a unique role in Armenia’s economy nowadays. Russian is Armenia’s main foreign trade partner. 60% of the contributions to our country’s economy since early 1991 have also been of Russian origin. By the 1st of January of 2011, there have been registered 1300 enterprises and individual units with Russian capital in Armenia. In the total volume of enterprises with foreign capitals, the density of these enterprises was 27, 6%. Once again, we observe a stable trend of expanding Armenian-Russian trade economic relations. Thus, in 2010 the trade turnover between the two countries grew by approximately 20%. However, this does not mean that we should be satisfied with what we have got.
The mission of this conference can be viewed from two directions: first, the conference will contribute to the more balanced development of the regions, and second, will support the disclosure of our countries’ economic potential.
As of today we have 50 agreements signed with RF 17 regions. Armenian 5 regions have cooperation agreements with Russian regions.
Dear friends, colleagues, this meeting is unique and important. The dialogue, that we need to lead in the framework of the forum, undoubtedly, will increase the trust and sincerity in our countries’ business cooperation; will allow exchanging opinions, ideas and information on the prospects of the Armenian-Russian business cooperation.
Thank you for your attention.
