A regular Cabinet meeting took place today, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The Government made changes and additions to the procedure for the implementation of the state support program for ensuring housing affordability for families in the border settlements of the Republic of Armenia. The purpose of the project is to support the improvement of the housing conditions of families, providing appropriate conditions for the sustainable development of families (households) in border settlements. The main goal of the proposed changes and additions is to review the conditions of the program, which will enable other banks to join the program and to carry out lending with its own resources, as well as to extend the program's validity period until December 31, 2025.

Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Narek Mkrtchyan informed that at the moment 412 beneficiaries' applications have been approved. The minister also noted that within the framework of the program, around 1.5 billion AMD of credit has been provided so far. The support is provided for repayment of the principal amount of the mortgage loan in the amount of 16 million AMD and the interest rate up to 13%.

The Executive adopted a decision, which plans to redistribute 6 billion 61 million AMD from the funds allocated to the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure for the repair of roads and direct it to the repair, construction, technical and copyright control, design estimate documents and examination services of about 68 road sections and transport facilities, as well as to the payment of completed construction works (5%) and design estimate documents (30%). The total length of road sections under repair and construction is 21.1 km.

Nikol Pashinyan presented the list and noted. "There are roads by which we are opening completely new road arteries in Armenia, which will give great economic effects. There is no doubt about that, because all these places that we are talking about have a very high touristic potential, and of course it is very important in terms of unloading transport hubs, because our roads are already significantly congested."

The Executive made redistribution in the state budget 2024, amendments and additions to one of the previously adopted decisions for the purpose of allocating money to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The adoption of the decision is due to the need to acquire the building of the Armenian Embassy in the Republic of France. Accordingly, it is proposed to provide an advance payment of the amount planned for the purchase of the building: 2 million 300 thousand euros.

As noted by Deputy Foreign Minister Mnatsakan Safaryan, three dozen options were discussed, and the embassy stopped on this option, which was presented to the government. According to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, the selected building has advantages in terms of logistics and security.

Nikol Pashinyan first thanked the people who provided the building of the Armenian Embassy in France for free use and noted: "But I also want to emphasize our approach: the Republic of Armenia should start and continue to acquire proper buildings necessary for the activities of the embassies, which will also suit the image we want to create for the Republic of Armenia in the outside world. Recently, you remember, we acquired an embassy building in London, Great Britain, in a very proper location. And now we make that decision for Paris. Of course, the order of acquiring the buildings does not have any political implication, because first you need to find a suitable option in a suitable place and make arrangements. And, of course, we will continue this process as much as possible. The deputy minister noted that the dynamics of the development of our relations with France also implies this. I'm glad we were able to find a good building. And I want to take this opportunity to thank all law-abiding taxpayers of the Republic of Armenia, because it is thanks to the taxes they paid that we are able to make such achievements for the Republic of Armenia."

The government nominated Gegham Gevorgyan for the position of the chairman of the Competition Protection Commission.