Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held a consultative meeting to discuss emergency economic action conditioned by the coronavirus epidemic.

The Prime Minister noted that the government conducts its activities on a daily basis in a format conventionally called operational headquarters or the Office of the Commandant for Emergency Economic Operations. According to Nikol Pashinyan, there are already concrete results, as concrete proposals have already been drawn up, on which public discussions will be held soon and relevant decisions will be made.

“Our efforts will focus on three main areas: urgent action of economic character, emergency actions of social bias and strategic measures of economic impact. In fact, we have concretized our perception of such action, and now I am more than confident that the political problem we identified at the outset of the crisis is that in this situation we must find new opportunities that will improve Armenia’s economic position in the world. We can achieve these goals especially as despite the global crisis, Armenia continues to improve its international and global economic standing, at least in the context of the fight against the coronavirus, Armenia continues to improve its positive image in the world. I think these are not of secondary importance, not only in formulating our plans, but also in making it visible to the world that Armenia is among the best destinations on the global map to conduct economic activity in the post-crisis period. This calls for a lot of effort indeed, but I am convinced that we will succeed,” the Premier said.

Nikol Pashinyan noted that the debate format may be somewhat crystallized in the future, since the Government is open to suggestions and new ideas. “We also need to communicate with political forces, civil society and the business community who have ideas to share with us. Of course, all of this must be coordinated so as not to complicate the work, but to make it more efficient. Especially as we enter the public discussion phase, and Mr. Grigoryan, as we agreed this morning, we must also think about being very careful in these discussions so that any useful ideas or ideas that can help us make more effective decisions to make, recognize and make sure that we are aware of these ideas; people, partners, political forces, businessmen with certain proposals must be sure to be heard by the government.”

The Head of Government further said the Government has already announced its strategy, and it is obvious that the strategy will be implemented unless there is clear evidence that it is a bad strategy.

“I am convinced that there will be no such evidence: we should not be apprehended by the crisis, instead we should get stronger during the crisis and support all those who want to strengthen themselves, who believe in our capacity for global and individual growth, and of course we must continue this strategy. Especially in economic terms, we must prioritize competitiveness, productivity, innovation and aspirations to participate in the process of shaping a new world with a welfare-oriented emergency action plan. We discussed it yesterday and have a decision on the matter hand.

Today, I had a meeting with the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs on this occasion. We clearly defined what needs to be done in this regard, and our main task here is to make social support resources accessible to those who need them objectively and in no way reach people who do not objectively need. Today we have to discuss what we are going to do in the area of agriculture, and there are already preliminary ideas on what to do. Today, we will concretize these perceptions, and after a public debate we will try to finalize them in the form of government decisions,” the Prime Minister concluded.

State Revenue Committee Chairman David Ananyan presented some indicators of the economic impact of the coronavirus epidemic on turnover volumes in certain sectors, taxes and tax revenues and turnover volumes. Referring again to the idea of a tax holiday, the Prime Minister noted that the Government would not grant a tax holiday; people must be prepared to pay their taxes and, in view of the crisis, the Government will also invest in citizen participation.

The meeting examined the anti-crisis package of measures in the field of agriculture. They notably mentioned the support mechanisms and tools made available to farmers, farms and agricultural cooperatives. Problems related to the implementation of agricultural microcredit as an effective anti-crisis support tool were raised and a number of recommendations were made.

Prime Minister Pashinyan noted that the agricultural package seeks to support both the given sector and the country’s overall economic development. The Prime Minister instructed Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan to take stock of all the proposals, develop a set of emergency actions and submit them for final discussion early next week.