Wednesday, 4 June 2014
Undisrupted movement restored on interstate highways
A Cabinet sitting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan.
On behalf of the Prime Minister, Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Territorial Administration Armen Gevorgyan presented the situation created yesterday and today on M-6 and M-2 highways of Armenia. A rock fall had occurred, which created obstacles for road traffic on Vanadzor-Alaverdi highway. As a result of the effort of relevant technical units and road-building structures of Alaverdi and Vanadzor, the movement was reopened on one side at about 12:00, and an hour later - completely.
This morning, another rock fall of lesser extent hit the same section on the road leading from Dzoragyugh to Kurtan. Now work is underway, and the road shall be passable. At about 4:30 a signal came that the M-2 interstate road Goris-Kapan had suffered from a rock fall. As a result of emergency action, the road section is operating normally.
Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan urged the Cabinet members to attract investment and stressed the Ambassadors’ role in this matter. “The Ministers concerned and the Ministries should work with the Ambassadors so that they were granted full investment programs. In my opinion, the Ambassadors’ effort should have positive results, and we must work with them very clearly. I am herby instructing the relevant Ministers to prepare programs and submit to the Ambassadors through the Minister for Foreign Affairs,” the Prime Minister said.
With a decree referred to as “On property assignment” the Government under the loan agreements concluded between the Republic of Armenia and international organizations entitled “Economic development in rural areas,” “Market opportunities for farmers” and “Rural Capacity building” assigned the equipment and property from 2006 until December 31, 2013, to “Office for implementation of the economic development of rural areas” State Agency of the Government Staff. In order to provide the Ministry of Finance with adequate premises, the Government decided to rent 2150 sq. meters office space from Haynakhagits from June 1, 2014 through December 31, 2014 in a building located at Tigran Metz 4, Yerevan.
The meeting next decided to allocate a specific amount from the reserve fund to the Ministry of Urban Development, which will be made available to complete the repairs to the roof of the high school No. 2 in Metsamor town of Armavir Marz and a number of other educational institutions, houses-museums of A. Khachaturian and H. Tumanyan in Yerevan.
The Government approved a program of standardization services for the year 2014, a methodology for calculation of the amount of natural gas consumed illegally in the gas distribution system. The Government approved, in order to finance the re-equipment of the Philharmonic Concert Hall after Aram Khachaturian, the drafts of export credit agreement and loan prepayment agreement between the Republic of Armenia and the Bank Erste.
The Government approved the draft contracts between the Ministry of Culture and three Austrian companies on technical, light and sound retooling of the National Academic Theater after Sundukyan of 7 million euro and the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra in the amount of 2 million euros. It is planned to complete the technical re-equipping of the scenes by August 2015 to bring them into line with international criteria.
