YEREVAN, OCTOBER 8, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan today received Yandex founder and CEO Arkady Volozh, who is in Yerevan on the sidelines of the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT 2019), the PM’s Office told Armenpress.

Welcoming Mr. Volozh’s participation to the 23rd WCIT, the Armenian PM said this year in June he had a productive discussion with the Yandex executives on possible joint programs, and today’s meeting proves the bilateral readiness to further expand the existing partnership. “We are interested in the successful operation of Yandex in our country and the company’s making news investments, in particular, in the field of artificial intelligence over which we had a discussion in St. Petersburg”, Pashinyan said.

Yandex CEO Arkady Volozh thanked the Armenian PM for the invitation to attend the Congress which is a good opportunity to exchange views on the technology development and partnership agenda with Armenia. He stated that Yandex effectively assesses the investments made in Armenia, in particular, in taxi service field and is interested in implementing new mutually beneficial programs. He in particular introduced the experience of introduction of taxi service without driver by Yandex in several countries, as well as its statistics, considering it as successful.

PM Pashinyan said the Armenian government has declared IT as a priority, and Armenia is moving on the path of becoming a technological country. He proposed to start more substantive discussions through a working group and gave respective instructions to the ministry of high technological industry over the future actions.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan