Thursday, 21 July 2016
Government is doing and will do everything to settle the situation peacefully
A regular Cabinet meeting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan.
Before the agenda, the Prime Minister said. “On July 17, an armed group attacked the Police Patrol Service Regiment (PPSR) and took hostages. A police colonel was killed. On behalf of all of us, I extend condolences to Colonel Arthur Vanoyan’s family and all his brothers-in-arms.
What happened in the Police Patrol Service Regiment is unacceptable and reprehensible, because it is impossible to achieve a real change through violence: this is a dangerous and ineffective idea. The situation is highly alarming: the Government is doing and will do everything to settle the situation peacefully.”
Amending a previous decision, the Government provided assistance to those farmers and households having suffered of strong winds and hailstorms in Gegharkunik, Armavir, Kotayk and Syunik Marzes, as well as in Artik town of Armenia.
With an amendment made to one of its previous decisions, the Government strengthened the primary and secondary market of government bonds. The decision provides that short, medium and long-term bonds shall be granted an international securities identification code (ISIN) in accordance with the ISO 6166 standard.
The amendments made to another decision are meant to reflect the real picture of the receivables of Armenia Electric Networks CJSC. Under today’s arrangement, the receivables generated as a result of electricity losses shall be safeguarded by a reserve fund. Accordingly, any bad receivable shall be properly classified in order to write them off subsequently and reduce the amount of gross income when calculating income taxes.
With the following decision, the Cabinet granted a 3-year VAT payment extension to Hydro Corporation JSC for those goods and equipment imported as part of their investment program. The Company’s goal is to refurbish the SHPP on the River Argich in Verin Getashen community of Gegharkunik Marz, which is a small hydropower cascade made up of a 9500 meter-long pipeline and has 9950 kW / h of installed capacity.
To this end, they are planning to invest 3.89 billion drams, of which 850 million will be used to purchase equipment. The project is supposed to preserve those 15 jobs currently available. Wages will rise to 210 thousand from 170 thousand drams in 2016-2018. The projected upgrades will help provide 10 more jobs.
The meeting decided to allocate AMD7 500 thousand to the Ministry of Education and Science from the Government’s reserve fund in order to refurbish a modeling studio at the Gyumri branch of the Yerevan State Academy of Arts, which is currently using obsolete Soviet-era equipment.
The problem was introduced to the Prime Minister during his latest visit to Gyumri. A relevant draft Cabinet decree was submitted to the Government as a follow-up to the Prime Minister’s June 17, 2016 directive.
