Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan presents government program to Parliament on June 21
YEREVAN (RFE/RL)””The Armenian government pledged to speed up economic growth and significantly reduce poverty in the country in its new policy program which Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan presented to lawmakers on Wednesday.
The National Assembly began debating the five-year plan of actions more than two months after parliamentary elections won by the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). The program’s almost certain approval by the parliament would amount to a vote of confidence in Karapetyan’s cabinet.
The more than 100-page document covers all major areas of government policy and the economy in particular. It commits the government to ensuring that the Armenian economy grows at an average annual rate of around 5 percent on the back of soaring exports. It says that the projected faster growth will cut Armenia’s poverty rate, which currently stands at roughly 30 percent, by 12 percentage points.
Karapetyan said the government will strive to achieve these objectives by improving the domestic investment climate, assisting export-oriented manufacturers and combatting corruption. He pointed to a number of anti-corruption measures that have been taken in recent months. Those include the impending creation of a special government body that will scrutinize personal incomes of top state officials and monitor possible conflicts of interest among them.
The prime minister stressed the importance of establishing an “atmosphere of justice and trust”
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