YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 2, ARMENPRESS. By the assistance of the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, “Economic diplomacy” seminar-discussion was held in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia on November 1-2, reports “Armenpress”.

Deputy Foreign Minister Robert Harutyunyan said the topic is quite important, and it is necessary to clearly understand the issues for the development of the sector.

“The MFA is trying to considerably increase the economic component through its diplomatic representations, Embassies. The discussions are mainly directed towards listening the international experience of our partners of the World Bank in this field, discuss the issues faced by Armenia, understand what the system is in itself, what we understand by saying economic diplomacy in Armenia, and how the structures and Ministries operating in this field must cooperate for achieving significant result”, the Deputy FM said adding that a serious approach is needed for carrying out the works.

“Within the framework of the seminar we held a discussion over what expectations our partners have from the Foreign Ministry, what tasks must be given to the Embassies and diplomatic representations, what are the challenges from this perspective. The first issue to be solved is for our diplomatic representations to have a concrete perception on the economy, market of the country where they are working that can become possible investors for us. The adoption of sectoral approach is an important step, in other words, we can suggest the Embassies to adopt respective international or economic relations with concrete companies in those sectors”, the Deputy FM said stating that the Development Fund will also carry out works on developing investment ideas.