Honorable National Assembly President,
Dear Members of Parliament,
Dear Compatriots,
Dear Journalists,

First of all, I would like to thank those MPs who have signed my nomination paper. I have already said that this nomination is of formal nature, and for the second time now, we have been holding an election not for electing a prime minister, but for voting against.

Under the constitutional procedure, my nomination or the nomination of any other person as prime minister was not mandatory or necessary, as in case of a non-appointment of the prime minister, the National Assembly would be released by law. I want to clarify the reason behind my decision to be nominated as prime minister.

During the previous session, my nearly an hour-long speech was not surprisingly enough to discuss all those points I deemed important. Today’s statement will mainly focus on the economic situation in the Republic of Armenia, as there have been many discussions on this subject recently, the main reason for which is the decline in economic activity index recorded this September as compared to September, 2017 against the background of a 6.5% annual economic activity index.

Nevertheless, it is important to answer the question of what is going on in our economy, and also whether we should worry about that, namely whether it should be assessed negatively or positive. In the past, I had several occasions to say, not only in the status of Prime Minister, but also as an oppositional faction leader, as a journalist before that, as the economic activity index or the structure of economic growth that existed for many years could not be considered as acceptable in any way.

Why? Because the economic growth is mainly formed of such components that give us grounds to say that Armenia is a mining country, which means that we have so far been digging up the subsoil in order to export minerals; we are an agrarian and betting country which is unacceptable. For example, to understand this situation, let us consider what happened in June when our economic activity index reached an unprecedented high 11.1 percent. What happened was the following, which I have already had to say: The World Football Championship was going on and it turned out that our people, our youth and not just the youth were busy doing bets. And these indices have been recorded in our statistics as a sharp increase in services, and within a month we have grown to a five per cent economic activity rate only at the expense of making bets. At the same time, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that our tax returns did not grow because the gambling industry is being taxed at fixed rates, that is, a lump-sum payment is being made, no matter how much figures may be up or down.

Mining is the next problem or component that usually forms our economic growth, which has always been one of the pillars of our export and production. As a matter of fact, when the international prices of metals, particularly copper and molybdenum, were high we used to dig up and export the subsoil mainly in the form of concentrates that did not create added value. And I want to emphasize that the fall we had this September as compared to last September was due to the Teghut Mine’s closure in February, which was the so-called pillar of our exports, but which I did not consider it to be a positive pillar.

It was shut down because many engineering, economic, management and banking problems had emerged and so on. This is what happened, and it comes to prove that one of Armenia’s biggest economic problems is that the status of a single company can lead to economic fluctuations in our country.
And at meetings with journalists and international partners, I have always said that there are such owners in our country who, if they wake up in a bad mood one day, we may find out that economic indices will fall.

And the third component, agriculture, recorded rather a serious decline in September as compared to last September, approximately a two-digit decline. But I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this year we have grown 20 percent in exports by 9 months. That is to say, 20% more fruit and vegetables were exported from our country than in the previous year. In general, there are serious problems with regard to agricultural statistics in our country.

No one can claim that the figures presented in agriculture are in line with the reality just because there are several mechanisms for inflating or downsizing the figures. I had an opportunity to state at a government sessions that there is such an amazing phenomenon in our country as the shadow orchard. We are talking so much about the black economy, but in our country there are shady orchards, which are not registered anywhere so that taxes are not paid for it. And this is why when at the beginning of each year we anticipate the amount of irrigation water, it suddenly turns out that the necessary volumes have already been exhausted and nobody can explain where the water has gone.

And there is an opposite phenomenon: the so called overstatements. They are mainly associated with brandy production. You know that the Armenian brandy is a brand, but unfortunately there are still companies in Armenia, and I hope they will be fewer and not at all over time, which are producing fake brandy under the brand name of Armenian cognac. To this end, alcohol imported from other countries is presented as Armenian cognac; the so called brandy producers state fake grapes procurement figures, which allegedly show that they have purchased specific quantities of grapes and produced cognac. In this way, we come across with inconsistencies in figures. This year we have been more exacting in this respect; the mechanism of these additives did not work so well, and this is the reason behind the serious decline in agriculture.

However, as a result of a consultation held in Ararat region, it turned out that unfortunately we are not planning correctly what to buy, what to produce, and also the risks associated with harmful insects and weather. In general, our agriculture does not meet the modern standards in terms of technology, irrigation water, pest management, etc.

In this regard, the biggest challenge for us is the next year’s planning. For example, Armenia faced an unprecedented phenomenon this year when tomatoes have been imported to Armenia because our producers have grown in their output capacity, but it turned out that the domestic farms were unable to meet their demand, and the processing companies had to import tomatoes from Georgia or other countries.

This is a really serious problem and today’s primary task is to plan the supply and demand for 2019 at a proper level, make an adequate estimate of risks. The Ministry of Agriculture and the Government will support the farmers in the fight against pests so that we might not face increased import rates next year.

Here are the factors that have affected the figures, though they are not the only ones. There is another factor that you are aware of, namely that of the budget deficit. In other words, budget expenditures have been underdone since the revolution. There is quite a specific reason linked to our political fight against corruption, because in our opinion, many programs are implemented at an improper level, and our anticorruption policy has forced the program implementers and the government to treat each program with particular attention, which leads to expenditure restraints.

In general at this point, the competent authorities are investigating criminal cases of abuses, misappropriations and waste of about USD 200 million. And as I mentioned at our previous meeting, this volume is too great, but I want all of us to record that our investigative agencies are working under high pressure, and this is the reason that the process of damage recovery and reimbursement is not proceeding at such a speed as we would like, because the settlement of overdue taxes differs from the restitution of misappropriations, which calls for a probe, a trial and a court ruling that has entered into force after all.

I want to give two examples of how the government’s anticorruption policy can influence net indices. Particularly, we are investigating seriously and you also know that there is a criminal case concerning the North-South Highway. In fact, we can now confirm that construction under the Tranche-1 Activity did not comply with quality standards, and we will be consistent in order to recover the missed quality standards, that is to say, bring the road to the proper level.

We will do this in the framework of criminal and civil cases, or through negotiations, we will use all the tools, but it is obvious that the funds spent in our country should result in a definite outcome.

At the same time, it is important to note that a very small part of the road has been built. It is important today to establish such rules as will rule out similar approaches in the future where roads are built for getting certain kickbacks and generating income, and during this time, we must define strict rules. And when the construction of that road is not carried out in full scope because we have questions and will not let them clarify before the road construction continues in the old way and ways, naturally, it has some economic deterrent effect.

Neither the stated adverse figures nor eventual criticism may stop us because we are convinced and now I will introduce you to the fact that our economy is experiencing a drastic healing process that will inevitably lead to the realization of the goals set before us.

I will next dwell on another type of business-like abuses. You may know that for many years - 10 years or more - small hydropower plants operations have been discussed in Armenia. We theoretically understand that small power plants have triggered a massive tide of abuses. I want to give you an example: we have recently conducted inspections in 150 of 188 smaller hydro power plants in Armenia, 95% of them had no water meters installed despite the legislative requirement.

Small hydroelectric plants should have a water meter to see if they are working according to their water-use permits or not. But 95% of water meters are not installed. This is a disgraceful phenomenon, moreover, in most of these small HPPs, there are generators that do not meet the requirements of the license.

In other words, they have been given permission to use 100 liters of water, which would result in a generator that would generate X quantity of electricity. But we have a situation when more water is used for a more powerful generator to get more electricity, which, in essence, does not only disrupt our water balance, but also leads to loss of state revenue, because if we do not have a water meter, we do not know how much water the given operator has actually used.

Now we have to work to recover lost profits. I have also said at a Cabinet meeting that we should not redistribute property. There is no redistribution of property in the Republic of Armenia and it will not be the case, but we should discuss all these issues in a calm, tranquil environment and restore the interests of the state and people. I do not mean environmental issues as we can see today in Armenia that many rivers exist de jure but are inexistent de facto.

We constantly see our farmers complaining that there is no irrigation water, and that is not the point. Also, all hydropower stations and small hydro power plants should have fish outlets so that the wildlife production process is not disrupted, but in fact, such outlets are either inexistent in 95% facilities or do not comply with the required standards. That is, they have done something to show the committee, but fish cannot pass through and so on.
In other words, these phenomena exist and our anticorruption struggle has certain relevance to economic entities, which can cause some tension.

Also, I want to say something else. Look, we have declared our political approach to betting industry, and this is also a very concrete impulse for preventing new investments in this area, naturally, this should also have a certain impact in terms of figures. I am stating this to demonstrate that there is no unhealthy process in Armenia’s economy at the moment, and on the contrary, let me say that economic recovery and economic transformation are taking place in the Republic of Armenia.

What economic transformation is we talking about? I posted two months ago our understanding of the structure of economic progress and the political record is that we need to be transformed from a country of agrarian, mining, digestive nation into a country with a technological, industrial product and an export-oriented economy.

I want to state here that this very process is now taking place in the Republic of Armenia. This is a political statement and, of course, one can wonder if are there any facts proving the reality of this political statement? Yes, there are such facts and I will now present these facts to you individually.

First, as you nay know, the government is applying a tool which implies that those companies investing in priority areas to create new jobs, which meet specific criteria, are relieved of customs duties and VAT. In other words, these companies should present their program, their description of imports and the government’s exemption from the customs duty and the postponement of the value-added tax for a certain period of time, in order to encourage investment. Here is an analysis conducted over the past 5-6 months that shows that if we exclude the mining sector, investments in other sectors have increased by just 70 percent over the past nine months, with a 30 percent growth in new jobs.

That is, the import of equipment irrelevant to mining and betting industries has increased by 70 percent. And in that framework, the number of jobs required to operate such equipment has increased by 30% as compared to last year, i.e. we have 70% increase in equipment, and 30% increase in new jobs.

Secondly, during the first nine months of 2018, capital goods imports increased by 75.5 percent, including the imports of devices, equipment and machinery. Our analyses have shown that these imports are largely unrelated to mining, but to other industries. This also substantiates the fact that in 2018, imports of raw materials have grown by around 29%, which should naturally be used in the industry. In other words, this is the second fact that directly shows the transformation of the economy from the aforementioned two branches. In the field of agriculture we can witness a shift from the so-called old and non-competitive agriculture toward a modern and technological agriculture.

Third, industry recorded an increase of 0.9% in September, which is quite low as compared to the same month last year. Why is it that low? As noted above, the Teghut mine, one of the largest mining companies in Armenia, has been facing serious problems and has stopped its operations. The impact of the mining sector on the overall index is too high, but if we look at other sectors, we can state that in September as compared to the same period last year, 11.4% growth was recorded in the processing industry. What does it mean? These figures show that the share of mining in industry has dropped, and the processing industry has grown dramatically.

Fourth, we have a 3.5% increase in construction as compared to last September. Earlier this year we boasted a double-digit growth. Then what happened? Once again, mining is the reason behind the fall. This double-digit growth was largely due to the construction carried out at Amulsar.
But, in fact, it has stopped for a few months now, and we eventually should not have had any growth because the previous growth was largely due Amulsar activities - 90 percent and more. However, we boasted a 3.5% growth in construction by this September as compared to the same period last year.

With the sharp decline in the mining sector, rates have gone up in other sectors, which not only made up for the fall, but also led to a 3.5% increase.

Fifth, we have a decline in exports, and in September we even had a decline compared to the same month of the previous year - about 15% less goods exported from Armenia than last September. Let us see what it means. Last September Armenia exported 57 million dollars-worth raw materials, while the same exports fell to 44 million dollars this year. That is, we have a USD 13 million decline, or a decline of 22 percent. However, in September, the volume of textile goods exported from Armenia rose to USD 24 million against 13 million in the same month last year. That is, the index is twice as high in textile industry. This figure points to the transformation in the economy.

Sixth, business lending has grown by around 10% or nearly 155 billion drams, which means that people are investing in the economy. By the way, either bank deposits have recorded tangible growth, giving rise to negative comments, the authors of which are claiming that people cannot see a better option than investing in the banks.

Of course, there is some reason in this criticism, but let me note that the increase in deposits is also the reason behind the stated fall in interest rates, which has been central on our political and economic agenda for a long time. In 2018, for example, the interest rate on dram loans to individuals declined by 2.9% on average. In 2018, the average interest rate for loans to our citizens has dropped by about 3 percent, and the dollar interest rate has dropped by 1.2 percent. The percentage of dram loans issued to business fell by 0.5 percent, in dollar terms - by 0.3 percent.

Seventh, real estate prices continue to grow in Armenia, and the number of real estate transactions has grown by 19.4%. Mortgage lending has grown, and the rate of mortgage lending has more than doubled. As compared to the same period last year, the market demand for mortgage loans had increased 4.1%, while this year we have 10% growth.

Eighth, the positive trend of immigration continues; from May 1 to date, 13,000 more people have come to the Republic of Armenia than have left it. The number of departures was 9,000 greater in the same period last year. This summer, of course, the positive difference was much bigger, but due to the tourist season. By the way, I would like to note that the number of our compatriots who have come to Armenia for the first time has grown considerably.

Two days ago, I received a well-known Armenian-American businessman, Mike Saryan, the president of hospital care services for primary care, with more than 43,000 people working in the hospital system. Note that only 40,000 people are currently employed in Armenia’s healthcare system. That is to say, more people are working in the system headed by Mike Saryan than in our entire health care system. He has come to Armenia for the first time with his large family and told me he wanted to support Armenia’s healthcare system and believed that owing to effective cooperation, our healthcare system could succeed a sharp breakthrough within 3 years to reach American or European standards. This is the evidence of a day-to-day increase in trust for our country.

The next figure I want to mention is the following: Look, no matter what they say in September, what is going on in the economy, but there is another indicator. Collections made by the State Revenue Committee in September registered a record-high figure in the history of the Republic of Armenia, with AMD 120, 751 million collected.
By the way, on this subject I would like to say that this is a very important fact because we have to admit that over the past five months the relations between the State Revenue Committee and the business environment were rather volatile and tense, and I want to consider this an indicator that the State Revenue Committee of Armenia, therefore, the government and the business circles have reached a new level of mutual understanding.

There are all grounds to say that we usher in a new round of dialogue between the State Revenue Committee and the Government, on the one hand, and the business environment, business people and the business community, on the other hand, where the two sides are not on different sides of the barricades, but in the same playing field, in the same vessel.

In general, I would like to say that in our country, we will have serious problems without changing the taxpayers’ behavior, and that of tax authorities, since we are fighting against corruption.

Of course, the government is firmly determined to implement its anticorruption campaign. What is the shadow in the economy: it is just an unpaid tax? No matter, one dram, two drams, ten million drams. Finally, the decision to pay the tax or not is not made by the government itself, but the one who should do it. This is the turning point. This is a decisive moment for building the future and the reality.

I mean that the fight against corruption is not a one-sided movement. When making that decision, a person decides whether he wants to fight corruption or not. I hope that cognizant of the importance of the moment, the citizens of the Republic of Armenia will make up their mind to contribute to state revenues. This means cooperating with the government and enabling public demand to increase social spending, increase the level of security, improve the investment environment, as well as to raise the level of public education, wind up pensions and so on.

The government can decide today that pensions shall be raised by 100 percent, but who will pay that amount? The taxpayer is to pay the pensions. The government’s task is to create an environment in which taxpayers get as much revenue as possible with the prospect of paying as much tax as possible. And we are doing so. The question is whether the taxpayer is ready to pay as much tax as possible in the most profitable environment. If they are prepared to do so, we shall actually turn the fate of our country; if not, we will have to build economic barricades after demounting the political barricades, which is neither in the interest of the government and the state, nor in that of the people and businesses.

To sum up the facts, I can definitely insist that no negative process is taking place in Armenia’s economy. Today, our economy is experiencing a healing process and a process of economic transformation.

We have embarked on the road to becoming a highly technological nation from an agrarian country: what is going on is just the indication of that process, but we cannot leave it alone in hopes of inertia and we need to take specific steps and implement very specific tools. What kind of tools are we going to use?

The first instrument is indeed the promotion of investments. In this respect, the fight against corruption, the elimination of monopolies, political stability, raising the country’s credibility and international standing are essential to encourage investment. In all these directions we are moving forward with steadfast clear steps.

Here, extremely important is the inviolability of property rights and investment. I have repeatedly stated that no redistribution of property will be carried out in Armenia, because it always leads to negative processes, because you cannot expect investment in an environment where the government can seize somebody’s assets or decide that property should go to someone else. We likewise should prevent investments from being controlled by “big fish” or tycoons.

Meanwhile, I expect the support of all businessmen and all citizens in this issue. Please do not believe anyone who may declare that he or she has the authority to share a business or an investment with you. Do not hesitate to turn to the law enforcement agencies, and you can see that any such individual will be subject to strict liability for doing so.

The government’s next commitment is to provide high-quality infrastructure. Today the highways are in terrible condition in the Republic of Armenia. And, yes, the government realizes that it is its obligation to provide high-quality roads, at least of affordable quality and yes, we assume that commitment.

I want to say that this year we have done a great deal of work to rehabilitate roads, more than it was planned for 2018. We have exceeded the planned target by double digits. It also refers to the availability of utilities, and the application of reasonable electricity and gas tariffs. Economic entities should not face any problems on the way to becoming a subscriber of electricity and gas. Surprisingly, it has been quite a serious problem in the Republic of Armenia so far, and this problem should be resolved very quickly.

I think the water reform in the Republic of Armenia is very important. Reservoirs, water accumulation and irrigation network rehabilitation should be one of our biggest capital investments, because we have had up to 80 percent losses in our water system for many years now. Imagine that we are wasting away 80 out of every 80 liters of water coming out of our reservoirs. As we do not know where it goes, we keep putting the blame on the system’s decrepitude. But we know that we have serious problems there.

It is well known that our natural water resource is twice or even three times as much the as the water demand, but we are unable to accumulate enough water because we do not have adequate reservoirs; every time we turn to Sevan for additional water, which is a very serious political, economic and moral issue for us. You may remember the law passed on water outlet from Lake Sevan. It was about 40 million cubic meters, and I want to say that we did not use the whole volume stipulated by that law and we managed to make quite a lot of savings, as we had promised.

The most important issue concerns the tax system: we need a clear-cut and flexible tax system to encourage investments and ensure investment inflow.On this way, we are going to apply the following tools: you know that on January 1, 2018, a system of VAT returns was introduced in Armenia, and citizens, businessmen can make a deduction every 6 months or get back their VAT overpayments.

It is not question of overpayments due to export operations, but the ones associated with domestic transactions, and we are going to reduce the deadline of 6 months to 3 months, with a prospect of removing the deadline at all in the future, so that businesses could get back their overpayments more frequently.

The next most debated issue is the change in income tax. In fact, our interviews with investors show that the issue of income tax is too sensitive. Moreover, by saying a flat income tax, we mean not only the same income tax scale for all wages, but also the income tax, profit tax and dividend tax, the equality of these two blocks.

The government’s preliminary intention is that as a result of changes in tax legislation, we have to make a 23% straight-line income tax, provided that in the next five years we will lower that rate to 20% for all. This will be a very important change, and that change will be important for a few reasons.
First, I said it was very important for investments. We want to develop the technology sector, but we did some wrong things a few years ago: we raised the income tax, which affected first of all the high-tech companies, which also hindered the development of the sector. We are now prepared to step back and apply an income tax of about 13% according to Scenario A.

We also have the Scenario B, and we will end up with the final scenarios in public discussions. I also hope that the forthcoming parliamentary elections will be a good platform for discussing this topic, but in the field of high and informational technologies, we are actually making a step to lower income tax by more than 10 percent. We hope this will lead to new investments in Armenia’s technology sector, and I am happy to say that this trend exists.

In general, I will not say that the scenario of 23% income tax is the perfect model. It certainly has shortcomings. What is the biggest disadvantage? The biggest disadvantage is that for those who earn up to 150,000 drams, actually, the reduction will not take place at this stage.

But I want to remind you that during the adoption of the law on cumulative pensions, we de facto for 206 thousand citizens have already compensated for the expectation that they could have the income tax reduction. Suppose, and this is a very important nuance to emphasize. and what does this citizen get when the income tax is 23 percent at this stage at 20? he gets about 3000 drams.

We get 3,000 drams, of which 206,000 citizens have already reimbursed these 2500-3000 drams for accumulation and have put in the law that if the income tax rate changes for them, the old version of the cumulative system will be reduced by 5% The state, the 5 per cent employee, must return.

That is, if we go through this scenario, the reduction of income tax for these 206 thousand citizens will in fact not give anything to them. Instead, what do we expect for such income tax deduction?

You know that there is a shadow salary concept in the Republic of Armenia, and let me say that this Tax Code, when we have 3 levels of income tax, 36.6%, 28% and 23%, does not encourage the shift in shift to shadowing because every time the employer When raising salaries, he must think that he has huge tax liabilities on him.

We hope that with these changes, employees and jobs will emerge from the shadow, and as a result, we will only have the opportunity to evaluate how many people get real wages because now there are people who earn 80 or 100 thousand drams , but in reality they are given a shadowy salary due to this tax system.

What is the reason, because you have already seen that in case of 200 thousand or more salaries the income tax is higher than the profit tax and the dividend tax and the employer is more profitable to formulate that income as a profit, pay as a dividend and after the dividend pay cash to the worker as a result of which he pays much less taxes. In this case we eliminate this obstacle and stimulate the high salary.

During the previous discussion, I said that we cannot use such a toolkit that would make people believe that 80,000 drams is quite a high wage. 80 thousand drams will always be deemed as a low salary, and our political approach should not be what we should do, as 80,000 drams are worth more, but we have to stimulate the employer to pay a high salary.

We need to provide labor incentives, encourage education so that a well-educated might know that he / she would get more income. I want to present the statistics which, in my opinion, is really revolutionary. I want to tell you an exciting fact concerning the phenomenon of non-registered jobs: 37,000 new jobs have officially emerged in Armenia since May.

Of course, some of these jobs came out from the shadow, that is, employers have decided not to hide them any longer, and I would like to thank all those employers. They have shown an adequate and state-wise approach. I truly thank all those businessmen from this podium. Indeed, some of those 37,000 jobs are new jobs which come to prove that deep transformations are underway in the country.

This time again, I seem to be short of time, and I can hardly tell you all I would like to, but hopefully we will be able to discuss these issues in all detail during the election campaign. But I want to make another such emphasis on income tax deductions. Yes, it can be an impression that we lower the income tax rate of those who receive high salaries and are unfair to those who have low wages.

But I would like to say that by this step, we are encouraging small and medium-size businesses, because the few dozen billions of drams that will be left with those who get high salaries will be spent either in the market, or will be deposited with banks. If we make this deposit, we will still have a lower rate of interest rates, which will contribute to the development of small and medium-sized businesses and the development of agriculture. If they go to the market, it is a chance to create a new business under the conditions of increasing trade volume for small and medium-sized businesses. I still want to say that our goal should be that a person who earns 80,000 drams comes out of the mentality that he must work for 10 years and get 80,000 drams.

If anyone sees that there is no prospect of raising his wages, he should decide to step back, go and build his own business. And our terms, our goal is to let this man get another income. We are convinced by this policy that we are moving on that path and on the other hand we encourage high salaries.

Unfortunately, I did not have time to refer to the 2019 budget, but I will also have an opportunity to address that document. I only want to say one thing. We have increased social spending by 20 billion drams. We had a choice at this stage; I say this because the 2019 budget is an inertial budget. That is to say, the budget of 2019 has been formed on the basis of the parameters which we, as a government and a ruling party, have inherited from the former. In other words, the activities of the new government and the transformation of the economy at least at this stage have no visible impact on the budget.

We hope that in 2019 we will see those effects, and if we see these impacts, we will react promptly to the change in budget expenditures. But in our opinion, we have solved a very important issue. We had 21 thousand pensioners and 63 thousand recipients of family allowances whose benefits and pensions were lower than the food line. And we have decided to raise the benefits and pensions of around 85,000 persons by 10,000 drams at once so that they could find themselves above the food line. Of course, this does not mean that we have satisfied their social needs by this step, but at least this means that we guarantee that the monthly income earned by these people is above the food line.

There will be other opportunities to address the remaining budget parameters, and as the time runs out, I want to return from the economic agenda to the political agenda.

Dear Compatriots,

As a result of today’s discussion, no Prime Minister will be elected and the National Assembly will be dissolved by law. I want to assess the historical moment because the historical fact is that the National Assembly is being dissolved, and we are going to have the first snap parliamentary elections in our country.

The historical fact is that after the non-violent velvet popular revolution of April-May, we give the power back to the citizens of the Republic of Armenia and return the full power of the future political processes to the citizens and the people of Armenia.

In other words, we are facing a situation where we will not have a full-fledged National Assembly, and we will have a caretaker Cabinet. We will be able to guarantee the legitimacy of elections, and we will be confident that the elections reflect the people’s will.

And therefore, the revolution of April-May is nearing completion as the power is being returned to the people, and our people will have the opportunity to make a political choice in December and de facto decide on the future of the government.

I hope and I am convinced that the people will hold fast to the power in the Republic of Armenia not only now, but forever and will never let it slip off their hands.

Thank you.