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YEREVAN, DECEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. A reception was held for the business circle of Armenia on December 22 at the Presidential Palace of Armenia on the occasion of the Christmas and New Year holidays. As “Armenpress” was infoprmed from the press service of the Armenian President’s Office, Serzh Sargsyan congratulated the businessmen on the coming New Year and wished them successes in 2017.
During the reception the President said,
“Dear friends,
I cordially greet you and welcome you at the Presidential palace of Armenia. In accordance with the tradition, we meet at the end of the year to say good bye to the passing year, sum up what we have and outline our future activities.
Entrepreneurs are one of the most vigorous segments of each society. It is thank to successful entrepreneurship that we create new jobs, new products and new services.
The most required precondition for conducting business is the ability of coming with individual initiatives. You have already proved your leading roles in Armenia; therefore, the activity of each of you must be in the focus of the authorities.
Our new Cabinet, which has already been in office for 100 days, launched its activities in line with this logic. I wish that in the coming year and in the future in general the cooperation between the Government and the entrepreneurs is reinforced by a higher level of trust.
Of course, trust is not measurable. Anyway, all of us know based on even everyday life that no new idea can become reality without trust. To implement new ideas, it is necessary that various individuals and organizations make collaborative efforts.
Our Government gives all of us the opportunity to create new grounds for productive cooperation for the sake of our future development. In this regard, I expect the Cabinet to deliver quality service being your reliable partner.
Thank to the consistent works done in the recent years, Armenia’s external economic environment has undergone significant transformations. Thank to these works, the factors ensuring Armenia’s economic growth have changed. But I have to also mention that some external challenges have emerged and developed much faster than we were able to adapt to them.
One thing is apparent. We need rapid development. And this, in its turn, makes it necessary to adopt innovative approaches for economic development.
In the light of drop of external resources, fostering export-oriented economic development becomes a priority. The first steps in that direction have been done by launching export-oriented policy.
We can make a conclusion by the data of 2015-2016 that the economy has some potential for developing in that direction. Export-import ratio of January-November 2016 allows us to insist that export must become the drive of rapid economic development in the future.
But it is necessary to make efforts in this direction and not to rely only on the state resources. It is very important to fully expose the potentials of the private sector by the use of all the possible formats for private-public cooperation.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union eased the move of goods and services in a market with over 180 million consumers. But, despite the evident progress, we have still much to do aimed at fully utilizing Armenia’s export capacities.
Our businessmen and state agencies can find solutions for the problems facing us working together. Here we need not only an exemplary and consistent behavior of our state officials, but also the creative ideas of our businessmen. We must move forward new ideas together, implement research of new markets, and aggressively target these new markets. Here I think the word “aggressive” is rather acceptable, in other cases aggressiveness does not bring any benefit.
For example, the already established single market in pharmaceuticals gives broad opportunities to the Armenian enterprises in that sphere, particularly, to those with proper productive practice. Now it is high time that our producers raise strictly practical, concrete issues in front of respective state agencies so that the latter are able to assist the exports of Armenian products in that single market.
What I say refers not only to this particular product or market. There are numerous similar prospects and opportunities not only in the sidelines of the EAEU, but also in other regions.
Our priority goal is to strengthen the mutual confidence between our Government and the business environment fostering the development of our country. I know very well that none of you will avoid an open and sincere conversation. Be sure, that in the face of the Government you will be able to find a worthy interlocutor.
It is necessary to reveal new prospects for our country by combination o efforts. I am convinced the coming year will be groundbreaking for us. I am optimistic and expect you to work for our common future with optimism.
Dear partners,
Summing up my speech, I congratulate all of you on the New Year. First of all I wish you good health and happiness. I wish your families prosperity and peace. I wish your initiatives to be successful and what is very important, stable incomes to your companies.
I have no doubt, the success of each of you is the success of all of us.
I am thankful to you and cordially congratulate you on the New Year”.