YEREVAN, APRIL 22, ARMENPRESS. The Government of Armenia must conduct a policy of high wages, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told students and academic staff at the Yerevan State University’s Faculty of Economics and Administration today.

“One of our most important tools of conducting a policy of high salaries is the introduction of a flat revenue tax in the Tax Code, moreover with a pre-condition that the revenue tax will be reduced in the coming years, reaching 20%. We believe that in this way we encourage high salaries, a policy of high salaries. We believe that in this way we encourage education, highly qualified specialists,” Pashinyan said.

He said they don’t only mean the technology area when they say highly qualified specialists. “We hope that soon the stock exchange system will significantly develop in Armenia. Our government is working in this direction also, and we are trying to find governmental companies in Armenia whose securities will be able to take out to the market, as well as to try and encourage private companies with certain regulations in order for them to take this path. Of course, the banking system in Armenia is rather developed, a certain system of services is also developed, where we can also say that a potential exists for involving highly qualified specialists,” he said.

He said the government agrees that even in case of greatest efforts it would be impossible to bring the potential labor force of the country to the same qualification.

“We understand that a certain layering is unavoidable here, and it is from the perspective of servicing the resulting issues that we have defined as a priority the agriculture area, which essentially we find to be related to technologies, also the tourism field. We think that the segment of the labor force that will not fit in the high qualification segment that we are talking about will be able to fit in this segment – by ensuring certain dynamics for the development of SMEs, ensure certain level of welfare and certain opportunity of making individual efforts,” he said.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan