Today, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan participated in the event organized on the occasion of Builder's Day.

Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan, Chairman of the Urban Development Committee Armen Ghularyan, Deputy Mayor of Yerevan Tigran Avinyan, Chairman of the Union of Builders of Armenia Gagik Galstyan, officials of the legislative and executive bodies, representatives of the construction sector were also present at the event.

The Head of the Government first congratulated everyone on the occasion of Builder's Day and noted. "Capital construction is the most visible and driving force of our economy today. Compared to the previous year, we have a 17 percent increase. But the issue is that the demand for that growth is greater and the potential is greater, because it was very rightly said and, in fact, the main tool to stimulate construction is the policies that the government is pursuing, both in the public and private sectors, because, yes, in the public sector we have the projects of 300 schools and 500 kindergartens, 500 km of highway per year, 50 medical centers, but today it was already said that 55,000 apartments in the country are in various stages of construction. And I want to emphasize that the fact that according to last year's data we have returned approximately 35 billion AMD of income tax to the citizens, who use it to service the mortgage loan, which mainly promotes construction.

Of course, I want to thank all our construction organizations that implement government programs, because we give money, but it was a period when we felt that money was the biggest problem. Now it turns out that money is not a problem at all. The challenge is to spend that money effectively and get value for it – lasting, quality value. In this sense, of course, the growth of investments in the sector is also noticeable. And there are also changes that catch the eye, for example, in the Republic of Armenia there are such construction equipment that we used to see only in movies or abroad.

But on the other hand, we must also emphasize that we have to set new tasks before ourselves, because if construction as a whole does not become an industry, we will have problems in terms of implementing our macro plans. It is very important that we formulate this task together, so that construction becomes an industry in the Republic of Armenia."

The Prime Minister also spoke about the importance of quality. "In general, if we take creative professions, one pole is considered, for example, jewelry, and the other pole is considered, for example, construction. And this also has a linguistic significance for us in a way, because we perceive that jewelry is a very delicate business, construction not so much. I would like us to at least narrow this gap, because the sign of a country's development is not whether a building has gone up or not, a road has been paved or not. The sign of development is what it has to do with jewelry, how many kilometers it is away from jewelry. We need those kilometers to be gone, because yes, we see buildings today, but very often we don't see aesthetics, we sometimes see aesthetics, but we don't see quality, sometimes we see quality, we don't see pace and so on.

Why do I highlight this day and what message did I come with, other than congratulations and thanks? I came with the message that we are really talking about the strategic development of the country: a new construction culture, new quality, new standards, new approaches, new pace. In our country, for example, it takes years to dismantle a building. Now we are implementing a project, the well-known former building of the Ministry of Defense, which must be dismantled, where we must implement a big state project, but we have been demolishing that building for four years. It is both a private sector and a public sector issue here. Not to mention, it is not known how long it will take to build that building. And in the modern world, we need to set other standards of comparison. We can see on the Internet today, thank God there is the Internet, that the building disappeared within days and stood up within days. This same process takes us years. This is where our problem lies, and I think we should be prepared, because you know, construction, like all fields, now there is no field beyond this, first of all, it is an intellectual field, starting from organizational work, design work, the process of implementation. We also tried so hard to increase the prices of technical control so that technical control becomes a real factor, but we have to admit that until today we have not succeeded due to various circumstances.

But I want that today, emphasizing the holiday, thank and bow to all the builders, because the pace of the country's development depends on what kind of construction there is, development in any field is reflected in construction. Whether the high-tech sector is developing or not, we see it whether there is adequate construction or not, because we need office space and so on. Education is developing. we are now implementing a new project, the Academic City construction project, which will require an enormous amount of construction potential. And now I have to say frankly, our tension has reached the point where we ask ourselves whether our construction industry will be able to fulfill these state orders or not? Especially when I say 55,000 apartments are under construction, and this is a huge problem that we have to deal with somehow. Of course, it is not at all bad that construction companies from other countries come to operate in Armenia, but we should formulate the goal as follows: a construction industry should be formed in Armenia."

According to Nikol Pashinyan, in contrast to direct construction, the construction industry is when the task is set and implemented in front of the eyes. "Here, too, a change in thinking is needed, and I am very happy to see in this hall many experienced builders who have been engaged in the field for decades and are known for their achievements, but I also see many young people, and the synergy of this experience and energy should bring us the results we expect. And, really, it is about the development of the country. Construction is noteworthy in that sense, because there cannot be a country that is developing at a high pace, and new buildings, new houses, new settlements are not created there”.

The Head of the Government also referred to the program of construction of apartments in the border villages and emphasized that an important element in that program is that the construction should be carried out by a licensed organization, because the government is convinced that urban planning is very important for the formation of thinking. "I hope that we will really be able to implement this task and I want to thank all those builders who were guided by this principle, those who are ready to be guided by this principle. Now it is obvious to me that money, public investment and non-public investment will flow into the sector. It remains for the construction organizations and the sector to be able to manage that flow and turn that flow into a long-term result.

Once again, I thank you all for the construction carried out and I congratulate you all on the occasion of the Builder's Day with the belief that we must maintain, increase the pace of construction and development and achieve new qualitative success," concluded the Prime Minister.

Next, on the occasion of the professional holiday, Nikol Pashinyan handed over state awards to a group of builders who have carried out significant activities in the field of construction.