During a meeting held with Marz Governors in the Office of Government, Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan said a decision had been made to allocate 5 billion drams to the regions from the Government’s reserve fund to address priority issues in Marzes.
“We need to identify the priorities and pick out the projects that have a multiplier effect. These amounts will have to be controlled very strictly, in an open, transparent and understandable way. Additional funds may be earmarked based on performance, efficiency, transparency and other considerations. The aforementioned 5 billion drams were not foreseen in the budget estimate: they came in as a result of optimization,” the Prime Minister emphasized.
Speaking about the investment programs received from Marz administrations, the Premier noted that the Ministry of Economic Development and Investment had been instructed to submit daily reports on progress in the implementation of the projects approved by the Government.
“We must pay great attention to the business component, which is the key to the development of our country, our regions and the source of new jobs,” the Head of Government said.
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Giving importance to the development of agriculture, the Premier stressed the need for introducing modern technologies and providing continued training for farmers.
“In agriculture, the whole theory was based on the assumption that the farmer is a good agronomist Based on this, we provided seeds, diesel fuel, fertilizers, convinced that our farmers knew what to do with them. But once we put this assumption into question, the whole theory turns out to be vulnerable: we are short of modern farms, cooperatives, technologies. However, we do have a chance: nowadays everybody goes to Israel to study agriculture; foreigners will come over to learn farming in Armenia, if we succeed to rebuild the agricultural sector,” Karen Karapetyan said.
The meeting was next briefed on the development of a strategy for 2017-2025. Minister of Territorial Administration and Development David Lokyan noted that the strategy is based on the analysis of 13 areas – demography, natural environment, urban development, transport and communications, public infrastructure, domestic production and income, employment, regional economic structure, education and so on. Account was taken of the strengths and weaknesses of individual regions. A special focus was placed on the objectives, priorities and vectors of development, as well as their justification and specific strategic programs. At the end of each year, the Governors must submit performance reports and action plans for the coming year.
Coming to the five-year community development programs, Mr. Lokyan advised that 668 out of a total of 792 programs had already been approved.
Summing up the meeting, the Prime Minister stated in part, “I wish to stress that we all must understand the need to create a system of regional governance and a management culture. Should the Marz and the community have a program of development, we will move forward step by step. The regional development programs are extremely important, and I am asking you to do your best to implement them.”