In his first New Year’s Eve address to the nation, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian reaffirmed his pledges to carry out an “economic revolution” that would significantly improve the lives of ordinary Armenians.
“Our main task in 2019 is the economic revolution and making its results more tangible,” Pashinian said. “But next year will not be the climax of our victories, not because our flight will be low but because our national and state ambitions will be higher and higher.”
“This is the key point of the non-violent, velvet, popular revolution in Armenia,” he added in reference to the mass protests that toppled the country’s former government and brought him to power in May.
Pashinian repeatedly promised the “economic revolution” before and after the December 9 parliamentary elections which his My Step alliance won by a landslide. He said his government has already succeeded in practically eradicating corruption and breaking up economic monopolies that have long hampered Armenia’s development.
Pashinian and the government have so far set few socioeconomic targets for the coming years. They are due to submit a five-year comprehensive policy program to the new Armenian parliament later this month or early next.
In its election campaign manifesto, My Step pledged to cut the official poverty rate in the country, which currently stands at around 30 percent, by at least 10 percentage points in the next five years. It did not forecast economic growth rates.
Former Prime Minister Karen Karapetian’s cabinet committed itself to achieving a slightly faster pace of poverty reduction. Its policy program approved by the parliament in June 2017 said that the Armenian economy will grow at an average annual rate of around 5 percent for the next five years.
According to official statistics, economic growth in Armenia reached 7.5 percent in 2017. Economy Minister Tigran Khachatrian said in November that it will slow down to between 5 and 6 percent in 2018.
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