Eurasian Economic Forum: Armenian PM highlights digital transformation

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 1, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan highlighted digital transformation in his speech at the Eurasian Economic Forum session titled Digitization in Modern Realities, the Imperative to Ensure Four Freedoms.

“The terms digital economy, digital society and digital transformation are cemented in our daily lives, and we live in a reality to which technological breakthrough is typical. But it is very important to look back and define the digital transformation. For me, digital transformation first of all means to achieve efficiency and flexibility in transactional processes by moving from analog data to digital data. This definition implies the government’s activities, however the emphasis must be made on the entire society because the digitation process of states must stem from the convenience of the citizens and businesses, and not vice versa,” Pashinyan said, emphasizing that digital processes must be practical, modern and useful for people and businesses. “If this doesn’t happen, then it’s not digitization, it is an imitation of digitization, which doesn’t make sense.”

“Practically, this must be about the full transformation of public services,” the Armenian PM added.

He said that the successful digitization of the services requires trustworthy, full and accessible data to make state services fully transparent. Pashinyan said this will simplify the partnership of citizens and businesses with the state bodies, making it more convenient, effective and secure.

“The concept of trustworthy data storage has a key place in the digital transformation ideology in Armenia. This system is based on trust between state bodies, and most importantly, citizens, businesses and the state,” he said.

“Safe data storage enables various state agencies to rely on each other’s information without the need for exchanging or copying it. This will enable to replace exchange of documents and ensure access to important legal data, at the same time maintain the security regulations and national regulations of collecting, storing and processing data. The data will be stored in national sectors and will be accessible only in the interborder format in case of request,” he said, adding that this process can improve for businesses the transnational commerce and indirect tax payments. 

“Imagine a situation when the whole digital data regarding the movement of a batch of goods, from the moment it is sent from one country, becomes accessible and trackable for the authorized bodies of another country 24/7, even before it reaches its point of destination,” he said.

“We see a future where digitization will significantly expand people’s freedom of movement and exercise of the right to work,” Pashinyan said.