YEREVAN—Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Thursday proposed an additional 2.5 billion drams for Armenia’s Armed Forces when he briefed the cabinet about the upcoming plan that will be proposed by him and his “My Step” alliance, which garnered more than 70 percent of the votes in Sunday’s snap parliamentary elections.
Pashinyan said one of his key priorities will be “to raise the combat readiness of the Armed Forces, and I have stated that we must be able to invest nearly $2.5 billion for the development of the Armed Forces in the next five years. In order to secure these funds, additional work is needed to garner additional funds, some of which will be allocated to improving the living condition of the servicemen.”
He also prioritized the development of Armenia’s military-industrial complex, and I linked the solution of this issue with his vision to make Armenia a technologically advanced country and the imperative to develop the engineering and technical capabilities of the country.
Saying that parliamentary elections have given his alliance a mandate to govern the country for the next five years and as such some of the programs that his government has implemented must be enhanced.
Pashinyan spoke about the promotion of investments within the context of what he called the “economic revolution.”
“We should acknowledge that there is a great interest in investing in Armenia which will continue growing in the future. I want to draw the attention of all public officials in Armenia and task them to create the necessary conditions and not to create any barrier for investments. I hope I will not receive any signal that there are some obstacles for any program,” said Pashinyan who added that investment processes must be simplified to avoid artificial obstacles.
He also spoke about large-scale reforms in the healthcare and education systems in Armenia, saying that the two must compete within international standards.
Pashinyan also emphasized the need to improve the citizens’ socio-economic conditions and proposed to improve and increase the effectiveness of Armenia’s public administration system.
“The challenge [facing the government] is to eliminate extreme poverty in Armenia and significantly reduce the poverty rate. We have the mandate of the citizens and must be able to solve these issues first of all by the promotion of work and creation of necessary conditions for this work,” said Pashinyan.
Eliminate poverty! Should be #1 priority.
The question is how to eliminate poverty. Pashinyan himself is not an economist and knows little about economy. Most of what you hear from him comes from his economic advisors. You can find their interviews online, if you are interested. One of the main things that they constantly repeat is that Armenia needs to downsize the government. Currently, Armenia has more 250 thousand people working in different governmental institutions. Almost every mayor has deputies, deputies have their own deputies and assistants for deputies. It is a huge system created when the previous governments needed more people to act as their armies during every single election by intimidating or bribing voters. The idea is that the number can be reduced to less than 200 thousand. Number of ministries can be reduced to 10 or 9 from the current 16 or 17. Even the diaspora ministry which literally doesn’t do anything has on average 90 employees. This will sadly increase the unemployment in the short term but will help cut the budget deficit and direct more money to education, army and health care. The previous irresponsible and incompetent governments used to pay the salaries of these governmental workers at least partly by foreign loans. It is the most irresponsible thing that any government can do since the loans eventually have to be repaid. The new government has already managed to considerably cut the budget deficit by cutting spending. long story short, Armenia needs some painful reforms that will cost the current government its popularity but there is really not much they can do considering the huge foreign debt and the ballooning military spending.
Well done Pashinyan it is a very good idea. What are your other important policies?
President Armen Sarkissian and Nikol Pashinyan know who controls GAMBLING in Armenia. YES THEY DO.
Sarkissian and Pashinyan are fully aware that gambling can impact on many aspects of people’s lives including family and relationships, finances, work and even their health. Many suicides are gambling related.
Sarkissian and Pashinyan must not indirectly PROMOTE gambling and should discourage it.
What is PASHINYAN’S Policy on GAMBLING in Armenia?? Has Sarkissian have any plans to control gambling in Armenia?? Being silent is very crafty but harmful in this case.
Mr Armen Syarkissin and Nikol Pashinyan must notify people of their OVERALL PLAN. What is their AGENDA???
Since Pashinyan’s arrival as Prime Minister there have been no declarations of what their SCHEDULE is? This is very cleverly done. No promises at all.
Yes zarkim. Gabeling is huge problem in Armenia. Also the very high interest rate for personal loans is also an abuse and alarming.
Those bankers get loans at 3% from central banks then lend them at 20-30%.. people can just make payments on interest. .rarely on capital. Thereby becoming victims of those thugs who enslave there own nation
”investment processes must be simplified to avoid artificial obstacles”… and if Pashinian also reduces corruption, market economy will take care of the rest.