Wednesday, 15 June 2016
PM Introduced to Armenia’s Draft Territorial Development Strategy for 2016-2025
Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan chaired a consultative meeting, which discussed Armenia’s draft territorial development strategy for 2016-2025. The meeting was attended by Head of EU Delegation to Armenia Peter Switalski, a number of EU representatives, experts and heads of concerned agencies.
Minister of Territorial Administration and Development Davit Lokyan gave details of the draft territorial development strategy for 2016-2025, introducing the main objectives and principles behind the paper and the expected results. According to David Lokian, the main aim of the strategy is to increase the competitiveness of regions, taking as a basis the internal potential of the latter, enabling the most widely integrated with the national and international economies, providing a high level of proportionality in the territories, with particular attention to the least underdeveloped areas and border communities.
According to the Minister, one of the major objectives of the strategy is the sustainable use of resources, improvement of territorial development policy and style of work in the planning and implementation of development processes through a more active participation of regional and local players.
It was reported that the current position of the Government regarding the territorial development is presented in the Concept of Territorial Development, which was adopted in 2011. The concept is aimed at mitigating the disproportionate development between the territories and the implementation of programs aimed at building local capacity for national, regional and local authorities.
Minister David Lokyan also informed that the draft strategy was developed jointly with the European Union and it is expected that the first practical application of the strategy will be complete as early as in 2016-2017, and implemented in 2017-2020
Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan stressed the importance of the document, the implementation of which will promote proportional territorial development. The Premier emphasized that along with the development of communities, the central government’s powers will have to be decentralized toward communities. According to the Head of Government, communities have insufficient financial resources to solve their problems, which is a problem in terms of harmonious economic development. In this context, Prime Minister Abrahamyan stressed the need for assistance on the part of the Government of Armenia and international organizations.
Head of EU Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Peter Switalski noted the importance of Armenia’s Territorial Development Strategy and welcomed the Government’s policy aimed at the development of communities. The Ambassador noted that the EU is ready to continue to provide additional financial assistance to Armenia for implementation of territorial development-targeted programs.
