Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan chaired the first sitting of the Economic Policy Council under the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, held via video link.
Arthur Javadyan, Chairman of the Board at the Centre for Economic Perspectives Foundation, Artak Kamalyan, Member of the Board for Industry and Agriculture of the Eurasian Economic Commission, Gurgen Aslanyan, Chairman of the Armenian Economic Association, Eugene Kandel, Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Zareh Asatryan, Member of the Center for European Economic Research, Levon Barseghyan, Professor at U.S. Cornell University, Ruben Enikolopov, Assistant Professor at the New Economic School in Moscow, Vladimir Asriyan, Professor at the Barcelona School of Economics, Alexander Auzan, Dean of the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University participated in the session as members of the Council.
In his speech, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan particularly said:
“Dear members of the Economic Council, participants,
I am glad to host the very first meeting of the Council.
Before I begin, I would like to sincerely thank members of the Council for accepting the invitation to join and for your willingness to support Government of Armenia through providing objective economic advice on the formulation of economic policies.
This format is ever important now, when the global economy is going through transformative turbulence as the result of pandemic, hastening pace of digital transformation, climate change and geopolitical tensions. Some of the challenges, such as accelerating rate of inflation and disruption of supply chains are especially challenging for small economies.
Armenia is not an exception.
We have registered robust economic growth during the first quarter of 2022, but we do understand that a longer term sustainable economic development will largely depend on flexibility and effectiveness of our today’s reforms and projects.
I am sure that the Economic Council will grow into an institution that will help, support and guide economic reforms in Armenia, and I am firmly committed to support activities of the Council through open, transparent but constructive dialogue.
I wish all participant successful and fruitful discussion”.
Then, issues related to the further activities of the Council were discussed. The participants of the meeting expressed confidence that the discussions to be held within the framework of the Council will contribute to the formation of steps, ideas and proposals aimed at overcoming the existing challenges in the field of economy and finding effective solutions.
The next meeting of the Council is planned to be held in July in Armenia.
