ArmInfo. In Armenia, there is a tendency to rollback from the declared principles for the formation of a knowledge-based economy. On September 15, RA second president Robert Kocharyan stated this in an interview with a limited number of journalists.
According to him, the structure of the country's economy is beginning to deform towards the mining industry. As the second president considers, the mining industry also needs to be developed, taking into account all the risks associated with environmental protection. Moreover, prices on international sites are so favorable that business entities can make investments in compliance with more stringent environmental standards. However, the structure of the country's economy is not changing. "We can have an economy based on science, but for that we need to start with education. Without the development of the educational system, it is quite logical to ask the question of how this can be achieved," Robert Kocharyan said. He recalled that in Soviet times there was a powerful polytechnic institute in Armenia, which trained personnel for developing industries. There were, in particular, specialties in electromechanics, chemistry, which were received by young people for the powerful electrical and chemical industries. It is impossible to develop engineering if there are no corresponding industries.
In any case, as Robert Kocharyan noted, everything must start with education. Without education, it is impossible to turn the country into state of IT specialists. All over the world, Ireland has the most advanced experience in the field of information technology, where this area accounts for 8-9% of the country's GDP. But in this particular case, a large role belongs to the world's largest companies in the field of information technology, which are active in this country.
The second president pointed out the importance of digitalizing the entire country, the entire public administration system. "Whether work is going on in this direction or not, I have great doubts about this," said the second president. He pointed to earlier reports that an employee of the National Security Service should be next to the investor. Meanwhile, the very last person an investor would like to see in Armenia is an employee of the National Security Service. All this speaks about the worldview of the authorities, which do not represent the psychology of businessmen. Changes, including in the structure of the economy, cannot occur due to orders, it is necessary to create conditions. The second president recalled that the IT sector was proclaimed a priority area of development by the country's previous authorities. In this process, meetings are held with investors, specialists to streamline a set of issues. Everything that was developing at that time - the IT sector, jewelry, agriculture, all this was accompanied by a set of meetings and the adoption of appropriate decisions, whether it was on tax benefits or customs preferences. As an example, Robert Kocharyan cited the invitation to the country of the Synopsys company, which today is the most advanced in its field.
