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

Before discussing the agenda items, the Premier referred to the COVID-19-related situation. “Dear colleagues, while our troops are brilliantly fulfilling their combat tasks, we must secure our rear. In this regard, I am sorry to state that new cases of coronavirus infection are being recorded in our country. 554 cases were revealed in a total of 2190 tests conducted yesterday. In view of the above, I would like to reiterate my call on our compatriots to observe the safety rules: wear a mask, practice social distancing and disinfect hands on a regular basis. The pressure on the healthcare system has somewhat eased over the past week. We assume that stricter observance of the prescribed rules, including the fact that citizens are increasingly wearing masks out of doors, accounts for the recent betterment. Unfortunately, there are still breaches to this recommendation, and our call is to strictly abide by the prescribed anti-epidemic rules.”

Minister of Healthcare Arsen Torosyan provided a COVID-19 update on the situation in Armenia.

The Government approved the Capital Market Development Program. Minister of Economy Tigran Khachatryan noted that the proposed draft consists of 2 sections: diagnostic analysis of the capital market in Armenia and a relevant action plan. The Minister noted that the program will lead to a far better capital market environment, strong with tools that can help introduce emerging savings in the real sector.

Highlighting the importance of developing the capital market, Nikol Pashinyan noted that the Government of Armenia is working with potential companies to help increase their transparency and accountability.

“This is one of the key components of the economic revolution. If a real stock market is formed in the country, we can consider it the most powerful expression of the economic revolution, and we must do everything achieve that end. A lot of work has been done during this period. I am almost sure that we will have some results there,” Nikol Pashinyan said.

The Executive approved the government’s legislative initiative on amending the RA Law on Public Service and other related laws. The amendment seeks to improve the institution of income declarations. In particular, it is proposed to establish a requirement to declare the real estate, vehicles, expensive property actually owned by public officials. It is also proposed to reduce the monetary threshold of expensive property defined by law, as well as to introduce the institution of spending declarations, define the types of expenses subject to declaration, and so on.

According to Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan, the reform will result in the most advanced reporting system in the world, which is of great importance in terms of preventing corruption and revealing corruption crimes.

Nikol Pashinyan stated in this connection: “There is nothing strange in the fact that we now want to introduce a new system of income declarations, which as you may have noticed, is among the most advanced. In other words, it sets the highest benchmark for the transparency of public officials’ declarations. Why is it not strange, because one of the most important provisions of the government program is to have a country free from corruption? Corruption is seen as a major security challenge. The vision of a society, state and country free from corruption is enshrined in my message on the National Security Strategy. And yes, we have to set such high standards. This is the most important reform.”