ArmInfo.The Armenian government will provide benefits to GNC Alfa (a subsidiary of Rostelecom). The draft decision "On the approval and promotion of the investment program presented by GNC-Alfa CJSC within the framework of the "Infrastructure in exchange for investment" measure was approved on August 3 at a meeting of the Cabinet.
Presenting the document, Deputy Minister of Economy Rafayel Gevorgyan stated that the company plans to build a data center of 218 servers in the city of Abovyan. The following services will be provided: colocation, virtual machine services, cloud services, etc. The volume of planned investments will be about 11 billion drams, 6.5 billion drams will be invested in the near future. The first year of implementation of the project will provide 33 new jobs. The average monthly salary of employees is planned at the level of 500 thousand drams.
The Deputy Minister recalled that under the basic conditions of the "Infrastructure in exchange for Investment" program, companies making capital investments can qualify for assistance in the form of providing the necessary infrastructure that will contribute to the viability of the program (for example, public buildings, roads / sidewalks, water / sewerage , communications, etc., located near the territory of the investment program). In fact, as Gevorgyan explained, the authorities are ready to support investment programs in the amount of 10% to 40% of their cost (in this case, 10%).
For the construction of infrastructure, namely the construction of two substations, as well as part of access roads, it is planned to allocate 613.1 million drams from the state budget.
Minister of High-Tech Industry Robert Khachatryan, in turn, noted that the possibilities of the data center being organized were discussed at the Information Systems Management Council operating under the government. There are already some considerations for using its capabilities to manage state data, he said. GNC-Alfa CJSC (subsidiary of Rostelecom PJSC ) was founded in 2007. Rostelecom Armenia is one of the leading telecommunications operators in Armenia, since 2012, providing broadband Internet, smart IP TV, high-quality fixed telephony and a range of cloud services for individuals and corporate clients. The company has introduced the Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology in Armenia. In 2020, Rostelecom Armenia began cooperation with CenturyLink, the world's largest Internet provider, thus increasing the diversification of its international Internet resources.
