Wednesday, 20 September 2006
Opening Remarks by RA Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan at the International Conference on Innovational Information and Telecommunication Technologies
Dear Conference Participants,
On behalf of the Government of Armenia and on my own behalf, allow me to greet you at this International Conference on Innovational Information and Telecommunication Technologies, organized in the frameworks of Second Armenia - Diaspora Panarmenian Economic Conference.
Prioritizing the role of ITT in Armenia's economic recovery, the Government of Armenia acknowledged them to be a key area for the country's economic development in 2000 and has since been executing consistent and comprehensive work to ensure sustained development of this field. The IT Development Support Council by the Prime Minister was established in 2001 to review strategic, legislative and other fundamental issues concerning the formation of the information society.
The Government's and the private sector's joint efforts have led to increased investment into the IT sector in recent years that took the share of information technologies in the GDP up to 1,7%. New educational and training programs have been introduced in schools and universities and regional training centers have been set up over the past few years. All this testifies that Armenia is sufficiently well poised for becoming a regional center of IT development.
In this area, Armenia enjoys increasingly better representation on the international arena. Held on an annual basis, DIGITEC expositions have become traditional already.
Account taken of today's development trends, it was decided to hold actions under the Month of Information Technologies from September 15 to October 15, which aims the formation of the information society, the promotion of Armenia's international credit in the given sphere through due representation of its current achievements, encourage foreign and domestic investment and help the Armenian operators find new markets and partners abroad. I am convinced that the results of such work will be visible in the near future.
I especially appreciate the IT-oriented cooperation between Armenia and Diaspora. Our compatriots from Diaspora have been directly involved in the formation and establishment of domestic operators. I believe that this cooperation will be continued and complemented in future, too.
I wish the conference successful proceedings. I hope that it will allow all participants to get acquainted with the recent trends in IT development, exchange know-how, as well as to table proposals on the further development information technologies in our country.
