YEREVAN, MARCH 19, ARMENPRESS. 89 investment projects of 2.7 billion USD are under discussion with the Government of Armenia. 42 out of the 89 projects (774 million USD) are in fact in various stages of implementation, the others are under active discussions, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan announced during his introductory speech at a press conference.  

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan particularly said in the introductory speech,

''Good day dear colleagues,

I am glad to meet you.

This is our 3rd press conference, meeting in this format, if I am not mistaken, and during this period I avoided answering questions in order to make our meeting more demanded. Before I start answering your questions, I would like to make 2 brief observations and share with you information that I received this morning.

In February of 2019 the volume of mortgage lending of the Republic of Armenia rose by 100% against February of 2018. The increase of mortgage lending in the sidelines of the projects implemented by our Government amounted to 145%, the comparison is again between February of 2019 and February 2018. By now, the mortgage portfolio of our country has increased by 30%, and according to experts, this is a great increase. I want to describe the chain by which these numbers will have an impact on the real life. This means that in the near future we will have demand for construction. This will lead to the creation of new jobs not only in the sphere of construction, but also in the sphere of the production of construction materials, and generally, in the sphere of service and so on. I think this is a very important index, which will lead to decline of unemployment and creation of new jobs.

I want to inform you that at the moment there are, at least are discussed with the Government 89 investment projects totaling 2.7 billion USD. 42 out of the 89 projects (774 million USD) are in fact in various stages of implementation, the others are under active discussions. This means that we also have some rise in investment interests in our country.

The next thing I would like to tell you is that you know that March 23 is declared a nation-wide clean-up day and I hope that we all will participate in that event. Naturally, I will participate too, and will try to participate in a place not announced in-advance. I hope our citizens will also be active. I want to say that visually the main problem of our country is waste. Once I had the chance to say during a Cabinet meeting that I will assess that really revolutionary changes have occurred in our country, of course, it will be the visual side of the issue, when we manage to free our country, our beautiful country from waste. I am glad this process has kicked off.

In general, you will have the opportunity to refer to the details of the activities of the Government during the discussion of the report on the implementation process of the Government's Action Plan at the National Assembly. For that reason today I do not refer to those details and I am happy for this opportunity.

I want to say that I have come here to answer the questions of all of you and I hope all the possible questions will be asked during today's meeting because I know based on the previous press-conferences that there are cases when there are stormy issues that go viral on the internet but I do not know why no questions are asked about those issues during the press conferences. I hope you will ask all the possible questions referring foreign policy, domestic policy, private or non-private because the key goal of this format of press conference is to make personally me, the Government, all of us including my family 100% transparent and accountable before our public.

I assure you, there is no question that I would prefer not to be asked and there is no question, I am confident, that I have no answer to it. So if there is someone who does not ask his question thinking that I have no answer to it, please do not worry, freely ask your questions.

Thank You”.

Afterwards the PM answered the questions of the journalists.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan