Saturday, 13 October 2012
PM Outlines New Economic Policy Landmarks For Economic Conference Participants
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan attended the opening of an annual 3-day conference on economics at the Yerevan State University.
Welcoming the participants on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Armenia, the Prime Minister stressed the importance of foreign experts’ participation: “Such consolidation is a unique opportunity to discuss with Armenian economists such topical issues as are facing Armenia, our region and the world as a whole and are influencing our economy.”
Tigran Sargsyan said that considering the peculiarities of the modern world, the government has presented to the public and the National Assembly the main principles of the new economic policy, which he referred to in his speech. “For the first time in the history of Armenia’s economic policies, we adopted the principle that the State is responsible not only for creating a favorable competitive environment, but it should implement clear-cut industrial policy in cooperation with the private sector. I wish to advise you that along with this principle, we developed and submitted to the public a new concept, which became the subject of heated discussions with different political parties and NGOs and was approved as a whole. The approach lays down that 11 branches, where our country has a comparative advantage and export potential, are seen as a priority. Under the principle of public-private sector partnership, we have designed a set of development-oriented programs. Economic activity index was 8.3% during the first eight months of 2012 with 2.2% inflation, which means that this approach is yielding positive results.”
The head of government also spoke about the challenges facing the economy. “It is clear that economic growth, economic activity index factors are important, but what matters most is that our citizens could feel the impact of the economic growth. In this regard, there is still much to do since the main challenges faced are the same. We should overcome the stated 30% poverty in the Republic of Armenia, which is a dangerous factor. There is still an important gap in our balance of payments and balance of trade, despite the fact that the exports growth has overwhelmed the rise in imports over the last three years.”
In this context, the Prime Minister stressed the importance of the global economic situation and development trends. “During the past 20 years, Armenia has been abiding to liberal economic policies, which means that we must be vigilant in terms of international influences.”
Concluding his speech, the Premier stressed the importance of debates like this and went on to emphasize that the surveys and recommendations made on that basis will be useful to the government.
Attended by economists from Armenia and the Diaspora, the 3-day conference will be discussing economic development and financial sector competitiveness-related issues.
