The Government of the Republic of Armenia

Dear Colleagues,

Before proceeding to the agenda, I wish to refer to the Millennium Challenge Account program.

You may know that Washington has positively assessed the impact of the program in Armenia, describing it as effective as we achieved all of its goals. In this regard, we must thank the U. S. Administration, since the program was vital to our economy.

I want to inform you now that we have the opportunity to benefit from the Millennium Challenge Account Program once again since we have met all those eligibility criteria we were supposed to.

I want to tell you that the latest estimates available at the MCC official website suggest that the Republic of Armenia is eligible in the 3 broad categories of government policy. Corruption risks used to be our weakest point, but today we have positive developments in this field.

I am hereby instructing the Minister of Finance to raise the issue at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission in the United States, as well to apply to the Millennium Challenge Corporation for additional funding.

Of course, we must realize that the probability of renewed MCA assistance is not that high, because of a large number of countries seeking such aid. But we must take that opportunity. So I would like to attract the attention of mass media to this publication, which states Armenia’s progress.

The second problem is that starting this January 1, we will be introducing the funded pension system in Armenia. The preparations took us about 10 years. There have been heated discussions, including two extended consultations held by the President of the Republic of Armenia, involving MPs and experts, which resulted in appropriate instructions. After all interested parties had the answers sought during the debate the National Assembly adopted a legislative package.

Since quite a little time is left before January 1, those responsible for the reform need to work more actively with mass media in order to provide the necessary information to our citizens, especially to those eligible under the mandatory funded system.

You may understand that during the month when the funds registered by the Central Bank will start to serve our citizens and manage their savings, we will have to answer our citizens’ concerns about the ways to implement this function as from January 1.

This primarily refers to the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Economy and the Central Bank of Armenia. Their experts should spare more time to communicate with media outlets in order to give full answers to our citizens’ queries.