ArmInfo. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's working visit to France continues.As the press service of the RA Premier reports, on the morning of February 22, the Prime Minister visited the "Elite Club of Political Dialogue", where he had a meeting with the heads of a group of large French companies operating in various fields.
The Prime Minister referred to the rates of economic development of Armenia, the prospects of economic activity, the programs implemented by the Government in the field of economy, the steps to improve the business environment, the opportunities for investment programs.
In his speech, the Prime Minister noted that by the results of 2023, the revenues of the state budget of Armenia have almost doubled compared to 2018. the increase is more than 90 percent. "This means that many significant changes have taken place to reduce the shadow economy and improve the competitive situation in the country. In 2023, the economic growth in Armenia was 8.7 percent, which is obviously a high indicator. In 2022, our economic growth was 12.6 percent, in 2021 - 5.6 percent," said Nikol Pashinyan. The Prime Minister noted that a significant improvement in jobs has taken place. "Since 2018, 180,000 new jobs have been created in Armenia. And that's about a 30 percent increase in total jobs. The year 2023 was also significant in that we made significant progress in terms of GDP per capita, and in fact, we are now in the first place in the South Caucasus.
Of course, the investments and economic cooperation we have with France are very significant and important for us. Of course, the rather long and noticeable presence of "Pernod Ricard" in the Republic of Armenia was already mentioned, and also a number of other companies operate in the banking system of Armenia, in the management of pension funds. I want to mention the presence of "Veolia" company in Armenia. And we recently discussed that we should intensify and deepen our cooperation in the water sector. With the results of the extraordinary elections of 2021, we have set a task to ensure an average annual economic growth of 7 percent, and we hope that new French companies will also come to Armenia, will operate in various fields, because we also need support for implementing the ambitious plan of 7 percent economic growth", said the Prime Minister.
Nikol Pashinyan emphasized that significant projects are being implemented in the field of economic modernization. "In terms of investment programs, I would like to draw attention to the program of building 300 schools and 500 kindergartens in Armenia. We are interested to see construction companies that may be interested in participating in those tenders. There is the North-South project, which is a project worth 1 billion USD or more," said the Prime Minister.
Nikol Pashinyan drew the attention of French companies to the "Academic City" project. "We want to create and establish a new city in the field of higher education. We have already started concrete works in that direction.
I have to record that we are interested in serious investment projects in the field of manufacturing industry. The field of information technology continues to be one of the leading branches of our economy. And now the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of High-tech Industry are in discussions with the sector to see how we can improve the legal regulations of the IT sector to make our country more attractive in that sense. In 2023, the Republic of Armenia recorded very visible progress in the field of tourism, in the sense that the inflow of tourists has already exceeded the indicator of 2019. Now winemaking is also developing at a very good pace in Armenia, and I think there is investment potential here as well. We have an extensive program of reservoir construction. In particular, the construction project of 15 medium and small reservoirs is currently underway. We have chosen this as a strategy," said the Prime Minister.
Next, issues related to cooperation and the possibilities of implementation of projects in the fields of construction, infrastructure development, agriculture, tourism, high technologies, and industry were discussed. The Prime Minister answered the questions of the companies participating in the meeting.
Nikol Pashinyan had separate meetings with the heads of Thales, IDEMIA companies operating in the field of latest technologies, "Pernod Ricard", Societe des Troia-Valles operating in the field of tourism. However, it is noteworthy that in addition to the successful enterprise examples of French investors working in Armenia, there were also unsuccessful ones, such as the withdrawal of leading French telecom operator, Orange, and Credit Agricole bank from the Armenian market.
