A Cabinet meeting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The Government adopted a decision on establishing the terns and conditions for housing purchase or construction of the targeted affordable mortgage lending State assistance program for commissioned and non-commissioned contract officers on active duty or serving at the Ministry of Defense (MoD). The decision provides that each year 500 MoD servicemen can benefit from the program, which envisages a maximum of AMD 28.500.000 in mortgage lending, with 10% of the amount specified in the purchase contract to be financed by the State as down payment. In the event an apartment is purchased from the developer or on the secondary real estate market, 3 percent of the loan with an annual interest rate of 7 percent shall be subsidized by the State, while the remaining 4 percent will be refunded from the proceeds of the borrower’s income tax. The Prime Minister suggested looking at possibility of putting the staff of the law-enforcement agencies and the National Security Service on the list of program beneficiaries.

The Executive decided to allocate AMD 33.7 million for the monitoring of local self-government elections in Artsakh as scheduled for this September. The above amount will be earmarked from the Government’s reserve fund. The Union of Informed Citizens and Transparency International have confirmed their intent to act as observers during the polls.

The Union of Informed Citizens and the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center have expressed their desire to observe the September 8 local elections in Artsakh. Highlighting the decision, Nikol Pashinyan described it as unprecedented. “I consider that this a crucial decision and, as I have already stated, the Government of the Republic of Armenia and I myself believe that the Republic of Armenia should provide additional guarantees for expression of people’s free will in Artsakh. And this is one of the proposed measures, which is unprecedented in some ways,” the Premier said.

The meeting adopted a decision on making payments to the beneficiaries of the well-know baby-sitting program.

“200 beneficiaries were envisaged in 2018, but due to increased demand we have expanded the program to include 472 people. This year we will provide funding for 472 beneficiaries,” the Minister said. He advised that additional 77,334 thousand drams will be made available through budget redistribution to pay the beneficiaries of last year’s and this year’s programs.

The Executive approved the draft laws on amending the Mining Code of the Republic of Armenia and related laws. As adopted, the legislative package will simplify the process of granting the right to exploit the subsoil and ensuring the accuracy of registry data.