Armenia Ready for Close Cooperation with Integration Partners: Nikol Pashinyan

Armenia has traditionally been actively involved in and supports the creation and implementation of the EAEU digital agenda. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this during his speech at the meeting of the EAEU Intergovernmental Council, as reported by an Armenpress correspondent from Almaty.

“We welcome the holding of the Digital Summit within the framework of today’s meeting, in which I was happy to participate. I am confident that today’s summit will make a significant contribution to determining the priority areas and effective tools for cooperation in the field of advanced and digital technologies among our countries,” Pashinyan said.

In this context, I would like to express my satisfaction with the successful launch of the pilot program of the mobile application “Traveling Without COVID-19.” Launched on February 1, this project has allowed us to find mutually acceptable solutions to the issue of passenger transportation between Armenia, Belarus, and Russia, which has significant social and economic importance for our country,” Pashinyan added.

The Prime Minister noted that this project is also important for reducing the risk of spreading the coronavirus and occupies a significant place among the measures being taken to combat the pandemic.

Regarding other topics, Pashinyan mentioned that the mechanism for implementing special protective, anti-dumping, and countervailing measures within the EAEU could be effectively launched to protect domestic producers from the negative impacts of growing imports from third countries or unfair competition.

Pashinyan emphasized that the Armenian side is ready for close cooperation with integration partners to explore ways of developing a common approach to the application of these measures. He also considers it important to examine the possibility of developing and implementing response mechanisms within the EAEU that comply with existing international agreements.

“We greatly value the assessments and conclusions presented in the report on 'Proposals for Ensuring the Macroeconomic Situation and Sustainable Economic Development in EAEU Member States.' I am confident that they are useful for analyzing the financial and economic situation of our countries and forecasting its movement directions.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude for the constructive approach demonstrated by the EAEU countries regarding Armenia's initiative to review the list of countries benefiting from a unified system of tariff preferences. I am pleased to note that the issue of granting tariff preferences to goods and services from developing and least developed countries has already been included in our organization’s agenda and will receive a corresponding solution in the near future based on the criteria we adopted,” Pashinyan added.

The discussion among representatives of EAEU member countries centers around issues of lifting barriers in the internal market of the Eurasian Economic Union, approaches to perfecting the mechanisms for applying anti-dumping and countervailing measures, the macroeconomic situation, and proposals for economically sustainable development of the member countries. It is planned to establish a regulation for supporting the process of coordinating and analyzing breeding work in the field of animal husbandry in member states.

According to Kazakhstan's Prime Minister Askar Mamin, key areas during their presidency will focus on various directions based on the EAEU experience. “The accessibility of the overall EAEU market is becoming highly necessary. It is important to direct efforts towards organizing the smooth movement of goods more effectively. Once again, I would like to emphasize the digitalization agenda. It is necessary to promote digital initiatives by revealing the existing potential,” Mamin stated.