New development model for Armenia’s economy: Pashinyan gives interview to Russian magazine

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Armenia’s government plans to make the country a modern high technological and democratic state with effective governance which will be based on the rule of law, will be corruption-free and will have a developed institutional base for the protection of human rights and intellectual property, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview to the Vestnik Economiki EAEU (Вестник Экономики ЕАЭС) magazine.

Pashinyan said the economic part of the Armenian government’s program is based on the principles of zero tolerance towards corruption, significant improvement of income mobilization at the expense of ensuring justice in the tax system, as well as the constructive steps aimed at contributing to the inclusive growth at the expense of creating equal conditions for economic entities, favorable conditions for free competitiveness and business in the private sector.

“In this context raising the efficiency of the public administration system is one of the main factors to achieve this goal. In particular, the new priorities in the state expenditures will be clarified in the national strategy of Armenia’s transformation developed by us and the human capital development policy deriving from this. In the coming years we plan to greatly increase the expenditures on education, healthcare and infrastructures, combined with deep and multilateral political and institutional reforms. The latter has a decisive meaning because the development of human capital and entering into the international markets are key preconditions for achieving our goals. This strategy also supposes a new model for economic growth based on investments and export. The high growth rates should first of all lead to the accumulation of the human capital, and the aforementioned policy and actions will ensure the fair distribution of funds. In order to achieve this, qualitative investments are important, and the government has been obliged to eliminate all barriers for the accessibility of market opportunities for each investor who has an opportunity to invest in Armenia or considers such possibility”, the PM said.

Pashinyan said the future actions will include the practical mechanisms which will allow to use the technologies and innovations for the productivity growth at the expense of modernization of industry. “And finally, the government’s program includes actions which will contribute to the SME development through the support to local innovations. The program also involves actions aimed at raising the market’s competitiveness. We are still at the beginning of the path, but some results are already visible. The economic activity index is 6.5% in the first half of 2019 which promises stable growth for 2019. Despite the famous political processes in 2018 Armenia became the second country with producing added value in the productive industry and recorded 10% growth. In the first half of 2019 the tax flows have also increased by more than 25% which shows trust towards the government”, the PM said.

Nikol Pashinyan said this strategy will put a beginning for the public discourse directed for reaching consensus on imagination about Armenia of 2050. “We are going to use concrete institutional and technological tools to effective implement this strategy”, he said.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan