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%.
