YEREVAN, MARCH 19, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has presented how citizens can have participation in the economic revolution and the government’s steps aimed for ensuring this participation.

Asked at a press conference on how citizens can participate in the economic revolution, the PM noted that the citizens should do this with their economic activity.

“Today, we are doing everything for loan interest rates to drop and loans to become more accessible for citizens. We are also encouraging people, and must encourage, for them to try and organize economic activity for themselves. I saw numerous uncultivated lands in the village of Ranchpar. Our objective is to make the cultivation of these lands profitable for people, and then to have the chance to sell their harvest at worthy and profitable prices to companies. We will also create opportunities for people to undergo specialized training. Today there are 3-4 thousand vacancies in Armenia’s IT sector, we must help people so that those who are able get trained and fill these vacancies, because salaries in this sector are very high,” Pashinyan said.

He also mentioned that the planned amendments in the Tax Code will define a threshold for micro-businesses, by which certain businesses with up to 24 million drams in annual turnover will be exempt of taxes.

“One of our main topics of discussions with the EU is for loan resources to be brought to Armenia especially for micro-businesses, that will be affordable, so that people will be able to take loans and invest it in the business. We are exempting individual cab drivers from taxes, which means that their monthly revenue will increase by 12 thousand drams from that moment. We are willing to change the social benefits system in a way that even if the given individual is employed they won’t be reprieved from benefits. Meaning, we should encourage the work of these people,” he said.

The government is also creating conditions for bootleggers to enter the legal arena and have the chance of selling and exporting alcoholic drinks of their production.

The PM said the government is maximally facilitating regulations that are an obstacle for businesses.

Pashinyan expressed certainty that the economic revolution in Armenia will triumph. According to him, citizens will participate in it the way they participated in the political revolution.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan