Friday, December 23 2022 18:47

ArmInfo.The first stage of work within the framework of the "Engineering City" program has been successfully completed. Stepan Margaryan, director of the Program  Management Office of the Office of the RA Deputy Prime Minister,  stated this.  

In particular, he reported that all earthwork, as well  as infrastructure and asphalt paving works have been completed. At  the moment, 24 places are ready for resident companies in the  territory of the engineering "Engineering City", 12 of which are  already in operation. Some of the residents, as Margaryan noted, have  already started building their own buildings. In this context, he  added that the companies deployed on the territory of the Engineering  City already have orders from companies such as Boeing, Mercedes,  etc.

In parallel, according to him, the construction site and  infrastructures are being prepared for the National Ultra-Modern  Computing Center, which the National Academy of Sciences received  from the University of Toulouse in 2018.

"We need to carry out all the repair and modernization works in order  to move the Center to Armenia within 3 years and ensure its  maintenance," the representative of the Deputy Prime Minister's  office said.

In general, he stressed that the establishment of the "Engineering  City" is primarily due to the fact that the sector is not developing  in Armenia at such a high pace as IT. Margaryan explained that this  has a number of reasons, ranging from demand, supply, and ending with  competitiveness and insufficient attention to the sector.

"And we want to develop mechanical engineering, industry, the  production of microchips and other areas of engineering, so that we  can create at least at the level of prototypes, and in the future we  can already think about mass production," he stressed.

At its meeting on March 1, 2018, the Government of Armenia approved  the concept of establishing the Engineering City and the schedule of  measures arising from the document. The goal of the program is to  turn Armenia into a country that exports engineering and high-tech  products and services to the global market, as well as a regional hub  of innovative solutions. To establish the Engineering City, an area  of 3 hectares was chosen on the Bagrevand Street. The program is  planned to be implemented on the basis of public-private partnership.  The planned volume of investments will be $21.2 million, of which  $10.5 million is co-financing by the state under the World Bank  "Promoting Trade and Quality Infrastructure" loan program. The rest  amount is invested by National Instruments AM and a consortium of 14  joint-stock companies. The program is expected to become  self-sustaining in its 4th year of operation. Within the framework of  the project, it is planned to train and retrain 1,500 specialists in  the field of engineering and high technologies. 2000 new workers will  be opened and 20 new enterprises will be founded. It is also expected  that the efficiency of companies will increase by 40%, export volumes  will increase by 30%.