YEREVAN (Noyan Tapan)–The grand opening of the first Internet school in Armenia was held Friday in the Tekeyan Center. The school opened under the sponsorship of the "Arminco" telecommunications company. The main purpose of the school is to provide computer and Internet training.
During the day–free classes will be held for students between the ages of 10 and 15. In the evening–the school will be open for use by the general public.
Groups training will be held in the fields of network administration–multimedia and programming–reported the technical director of the "Arminco" company–Gregory Sagiyan.
Attending the opening were Prime Minister Armen Darbinian–Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian–Minister of Communications Artak Vardanian–Minister of Justice David Haroutiunian–the president of the Yerevan Stock Exchange–Sedrak Sedrakian–and other officials as well as mass media representatives.
Meanwhile–the Grand Tobacco joint venture set up a year ago produces almost as much tobacco in a month as "Armtabak" does in six months.
As of July 1998–the total debt of Armtabak was estimated at 360,121,000 drams–including 175 million debt to the federal budget. For the year Grand Tobacco won more than 40 percent of the local market–whereas the products of the 50-year-old "Armtabak" occupied no more that 6-8 percent of the local market for the past two years. Galumian rejected the opinion that the success of Grand Tobacco can be explained by the presence of modern foreign equipment.
Galumian assured that the operation of the factory will be resumed after the completion of audit connected with the recent resale of 23 percent of the enterprise’s shares. Currently–"Armtabak’s" management is working to improve its mode of operation and presentation of products.