Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Tigran Sargsyan: “Our people will build a strong and democratic State in the 21st century”
The Republic of Armenia is striving to step up reforms so that the goals stated by the government are achieved as soon as possible,” Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said on September, 19 at a meeting held on the sidelines of his working visit to Brussels with the representatives of Armenian and European media outlets in the European Press Club.
The Prime Minister referred to EU-Armenia relations, the prospects for development of Armenia-Belgium business ties, as well as the threats faced by our country over the last 20 years and the future plans.
A new package of reforms was said to have been submitted to the European Union implying a 3-fold increase in programs and funds provided to Armenia.
“We submitted today to EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Füle a new package of reforms consisting of actions in 33 directions in line with the targets set in the national program to improve human rights, judiciary, prosecutor’s activities, tax and customs administrations etc.,” Tigran Sargsyan advised and noted that the new application provides for greater reform capacity and better infrastructures meeting European standards.
Tigran Sargsyan pointed out that they have discussed all the preconditions for the launch of a deep and comprehensive free trade arrangement with the European Union.
“Armenia has met the deadlines for all those actions agreed upon with the European Union and there is no such item as may fail to be complied with. The joint EU-Armenia commission will soon start its proceedings in Yerevan to assess Armenia’s performance according to schedule. The progress stated so far inspires hope that all necessary preconditions are in place for starting talks over the mentioned deep and comprehensive free trade agreement of which you will be notified in due course,” the Prime Minister said.
At this point, the reform agenda features dozens of items, including the building of 3 border checkpoints according to European standards, introducing the one-stop-shop principle and ensuring application of customer-friendly procedures. The second area of reform implies improved tax and customs administration with a focus on equality-based State-entrepreneurship relations.
An Armenia-Belgium Trade Chamber-hosted Armenian-Belgian business forum is due to be held in Yerevan this November. A forum agenda inclusive of pharmaceutics, farm produce processing, chemical industry, mechanical engineering, insurance, information technologies and a list of interested companies were said to have been drafted already.
Concerning the challenges faced by Armenia over the past 20 years of independence and the government programs, Tigran Sargsyan stated in part: “We have still many unsolved problems. The values proclaimed by us are not applied in full and properly. Our ideas, our objectives and the reality do not always coincide, but we are sure that having coped with the unprecedented hardships of those 20 years, we can defy today’s threats as well. All we need is to trust in and be fond of our Homeland.”
