Esteemed Vice Speakers of the National Assembly,
Dear Mrs. Tandilyan,
Honorable National Assembly Standing Committee Chairpersons,
Dear Members of Parliament, government members, journalists:

The peculiarity of the previous year was that our government did not have anything to do with the report as we discussed the 2017 budget execution. The peculiarity of this year is that our government has an incomplete participation, since we assumed office in May, 2018.

In fact, I have had the opportunity to address the budget performance indices several times in the National Assembly. Today I cannot tell you any dramatic news, but I think this is a good opportunity to summarize what has been said during this time.

I want to emphasize the following: 2018 was an unprecedented year in politics and the indicators are evidence of it: one presidential election, 5 prime minister’s elections, a snap parliamentary election and one extraordinary election of the Mayor of Yerevan were held last year. As a matter of fact, a velvet revolution occurred in our country in 2018. This is important to describe the background in which the budget execution process took place.

Formed in May, 2018, our government managed to deal with the most important problem – the maintenance of macroeconomic stability. I would like to underscore here that that mankind’s history has no records of such drastic political changes that avoided economic upheavals, financial collapse or a semi-collapse. 5.2% economic growth was recorded in 2018,, but I wish to emphasize that the draft 2018 budget bill as adopted by the previous government and the previous National Assembly envisaged 4.5% economic growth.

In other words, amid fundamental political transformations, the Government managed to overrun the target set in 2018, which was based on completely different predictions. In this regard, I would like to emphasize as follows: the State budget was implemented in 2018. The Government of the Republic of Armenia has no outstanding obligations, all the obligations of the Government have been fulfilled.

In fact, we had a low inflation background in 2018. This is what I want to emphasize because I can remember that inflation was the main topic discussed in the press and social networks in August-September and hosts of pessimistic predictions used to be voiced in this respect. It was anticipated that we might face inflationary shocks and risks, but we succeeded, including by taking some extraordinary measures, restraining inflation, and vice versa.

The budget indicators will be presented by Mr. Janjughazyan. In fact, nothing extraordinary has happened: we fell somewhat short of the projected expenditure, i.e. the costs that were to be implemented in 2018, but this was due several bottlenecks, including the fight against corruption because today as well there are major credit projects encumbered by criminal proceedings. The rationale behind these criminal cases is that we consider that the state budget, including the borrowed funds, should be spent effectively, so that the citizens could be convinced that they get the maximum efficiency and quality from these projects.

Now let us see what does the experience we gained throughout 2018 tell us? Indeed, what I described above is the result of the efforts exerted by the Government, political forces, the parliament, but we managed to maintain macroeconomic stability owing to two chief factors.

The first is that, as I said before, we should note with satisfaction that there are well-established institutes in Armenia and these institutions have played an important role during the Velvet Revolution. They proved that they can ensure the smooth functioning of the system of public administration regardless of political upheavals. This is good news for us.

The second factor is that we implemented a nonviolent velvet revolution in Armenia, which has been repeatedly criticized and continues to be criticized. There is much talk about the excess of velvet in political changes: we are constantly being urged to be tougher. But the point is that the government has many problems to tackle. The Government is dealing with a multitude of scales; if we upset the balance disproportionately, we may face a collapse in other spheres.

It is crucial to state this fact and, in this respect, yes, our government, the political majority on which the government relies, has set itself a task to be balanced, not to lose balance in any area. Of course, we could have had a two-digit or a four-fold rise in the statistics of detained persons and convicts in Armenia, but it would have inevitably affected e the economic indicators. I mean that macroeconomic stability is important and the figures for the first four months come to prove that. In fact, not only did we overrun that targets set by the previous government, but we also managed to abide by conservatism in our economic policy, but note that our goals are much higher.

I am happy to state that our balanced policy resulted in a 7.1% GDP growth in the first quarter of this year. Please note that this is not an indicator of economic activity, but the aggregate GDP index. The economic activity index was 9.2% as of this April.

I believe that this is the outcome of our joint work, not the result of only the government’s individual effort, but that of the ongoing government-parliament cooperation, including our oppositional partners, and owing to parliamentary debates, at times too sharp and triggered by different opinions. I think that in democratic societies the energy that should foster progress stems from dialogue and mutual criticism.

Indeed, if we want to have a democratic country, we must first learn to live in such an environment and secondly, the culture of communication still needs to be improved, but I have no doubt that the parliament and those discussions taking place in different formats are just the proper environment where energy is born, which should ensure further progress. In this regard, I would like to take this opportunity to thank once again our colleagues for cooperation. It is important to note that we are fully committed to the values we proclaimed during the nonviolent velvet revolution

The Revolution of Love and Solidarity has triumphed in the Republic of Armenia, and our government will be consistent in introducing the values of the Armenian revolution as a permanent system of public relations and a system of values.

One of the biggest problems for us has been and continues to be the formation of a society free of violence. I think this kind of environment has been created in Armenia today. Armenia is a country free of violence. We must institutionalize the vision and the logic of the violence-free society by ruling out the propaganda of hate speech. I do believe that these are marginal and post-corruption phenomena and there is no doubt that the advocates of violence irrespective of whether they are the supporters of the government or the opposition will be forced out of the public and political life of Armenia. Of course, we should make a distinction between social processes and legal proceedings.

Strong with the Parliament’s support, we must do everything to ensure that the law enforcement authorities’ efforts are effective. I want to make it clear that as the prime minister and a person that has won this status as a result of a nonviolent and velvet revolution, I strongly condemn any manifestation of violence whether on the part of the authorities, government supporters or by the opposite side, any propaganda of violence, any case of violence, any manifestation of violence and hate speech has no place in Armenia and should be ruled out. I feel that there is a public consensus in Armenia on this matter.

Back to the State budget, I wish to highlight some nuances. I have constantly voiced my concern that for many years we used to have some privileged government officials who failed to report for budget debates.

I want to say that we have discussed this topic with the Mayor of Yerevan and all those concerned, including the National Security Service, the Police, and we agreed that the heads of government agencies and public entities affiliated to the Government and the Prime Minister should henceforth attend the hearings of budget performance reports.

I would like to thank you for this opportunity and wish every success to the National Assembly and to the Budgetary Committee, in particular. Mrs. Tandilyan, I wish you every success and successful proceedings for the sake of our shared goals.

I am confident that we all stand ready to combine efforts to achieve the multitude of goals set before us.

Thank you.