Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hosted a group of MPs representing the economic bloc of My Step, Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia parliamentary factions.

Addressing the guests, the Prime Minister first touched on the government’s anti-crisis efforts. “As you may know, the government has so far adopted 13 anti-crisis programs. Tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting will at least feature another such program aimed at reimbursing tuition fees. We are also planning to make some amendments in a bid to address the deficiencies identified during this period,” Nikol Pashinyan said.

The Premier advised that as part of the first anti-crisis program, 259 applications have already been granted to a total budget of 18 billion drams, which implies preferential loans for companies to companies to pay salaries, taxes, utility costs and, in some cases, the purchase of food and equipment.

As part of the second event, which relates to agriculture, 3419 applications have been met, and the amount of financing is 4,827 million drams.

“We also decided to carry out refinancing at the rate of AMD 4 billion, of which 2 billion drams will go to fund micro credits, and the balance of 2 billion - agricultural loans in the amount of 3-12 million drams. At the same time, we decided to extend the coverage of this facility and earmark 3 to 30 million drams to a number of strategic directions,” the Prime Minister said.

As part of the third activity, which relates to hardest-hit SMEs and companies that have a good fiscal and credit record, 371 applications have been satisfied, the amount of financing is 4.1 billion drams.

The fourth social program addressed those workers who at some time lost their jobs and whose families have children under the age of 14 years. It turned out that the number of beneficiaries for this program is 1955, 195 million drams have been financed. The program is complete.

With reference to the 5th activity, the Prime Minister noted: “We provide grants to companies that have preserved their pre-crisis jobs and wage funds. We are talking about companies with 2-50 employees, and the government pays salaries to every fifth employee as a grant. So far, we have provided grants to 9,901 economic entities, the volume of the grant amounted to 1,600 million drams.”

The sixth social program relates to citizens who lost their jobs during the crisis from March 13 to 25. This program is over. 6 723 beneficiaries were paid a total of 457 million drams.

As part of the seventh event, assistance was provided to families where there is a pregnant woman, and her husband lost his job during the crisis. This program is over, too. 8 753 beneficiaries received a total of 875 million drams.

83,406 applications have been granted to a total cost of 5,777 million drams under the eighth activity, which implied support for self-employed entities and workers in the affected areas,.

“The ninth program concerns families where no one works and where there are children. We thereby tried to identify the unregistered workers. Either the seventh program had this very objective. 52,791 applications have already been received under said 9th activity; 1.4 billion drams have been paid out. I would like to stress that the 8th and 9th activities are supposed to have 100 thousand and more beneficiaries,” Nikol Pashinyan pointed out.

Touching on the 10th activity, the Head of Government noted that it targets micro businesses. 1485 applications have been complied with and 83.4 million drams paid out. “The 11th and 12th activities have to do with utility costs. As part of the 11th event, we have 450 thousand 827 beneficiaries, but this number needs to be halved, because along with registered natural gas and electricity consumers we have beneficiaries that are not gas consumers. 786 million drams have been allocated under this program. Money is credited to subscribers’ accounts. The 12th program covered utility payments. Here too, the number of beneficiaries should be reduced by about 40% to 486,434 beneficiaries with an aggregate budget of 1.8 billion drams,” the Head of Government said.

Meant to support welfare benefit-entitled households, the 13th program has 85,906 beneficiaries and an estimated cost of 1,252 million drams. The payments will be carried out together with the benefits for April.

Summing up, the Prime Minister noted: “10,531 legal entities and 639,592 families have benefited from the government’s anti-crisis programs. 29,900 million drams have been distributed as part of our anti-crisis action plan. We are also making anti-crisis decisions that are not considered anti-crisis measures. Today the National Assembly discussed a proposal to amend the Tax Code, which is a joint initiative. We continue to work on a daily basis and with your help we will do our best to ensure that our support programs are effective and focused.”

Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan reported on the current situation with the coronavirus. Tigran Avinyan stressed that the situation is under control and the number of tests conducted daily has reached 1000. The Commandant also spoke about the possibility of expanding the areas of allowed economic activities.

A number of proposals and recommendations were voiced during the exchange of views that followed. The Prime Minister and the government members answered the questions of interest to MPs.