Pashinyan speaks about economic activities during and after coronavirus

YEREVAN, MARCH 24, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan mentioned the steps that have to be done in economy during the days of the fight against coronavirus and after, ARMENPRESS reports Pashinyan talked about this in his message addressed to the nation on March 24.

''The International Monetary Fund has already recorded that 2020 will be a year of recession for global economy. According to some assessments, the recession will be even worse than in the years of 2008-9 economic crises. At the moment the predictions for Armenia are a bit better, but we will obviously loose the growth rate that we achieved in 2019 as a result of the joint work. But as I have said in the past, we perceive this situation not as a tragedy but as a new oppportunity.to change Armenia's place in the global economy and for implementing our economic revolution agenda more effectively and at a double-pace’', PM Pashinyan said.

PM Pashinyan noted that there will be 3 trillion USD decline of global GDP, which means that global market will have a gap in that amount.

''We have to get ready from today that Armenia must take at least 30 billion USD share from that gap and this task must be solved in the upcoming 5 years. This means that we have to set a task to take 1% of this gap in the global market and I believe we can do that’', Pashinyan said, adding that Armenia was able to avoid food deficit in this hard period, something that not all countries were able to do.

Nikol Pashinyan noted that the Government has elaborated clear steps for assisting the promising and competitive spheres of business and the 1st package of business assistance will be adopted during the Cabinet meeting on Thursday.

‘’A total of 150 billion AMD will be provided, but in reality this is not for resisting this crisis period, but for preparing our victories in the post-crisis period. During the Cabinet meeting we will also adopt a large-scale program on assisting agriculture. As I had promised, all the interest rates of all the newly provided agricultural loans will be paid by the Government, as well as privileged conditions will be created for newly establishing agricultural corporatives’’, Pashinyan said, emphasizing that during these days agricultural activities must not stop in any way.

‘’I call on all of our farmers to actively engage in agricultural works, because the Commandant's Officehas made a decision that agricultural activities are acts of primary necessity’’, the PM said.

By now there are 249 confirmed active coronavirus cases in Armenia. Some of them have normal body temperature, which gives hopes that they will recover even without any medical intervention. They stay in hospital just not to infect others.

On March 16th, Armenia declared a nationwide state of emergency until April 14thto tackle the coronavirus situation. The 1st case was recorded on March 1, who was also the 1st to recover.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan