YEREVAN. – The Minister of Economy of Armenia, Karen Chshmarityan, on Monday received Mark Day, General Manager, Government Industry Worldwide Public Sector of the Microsoft Corporation.

The meeting was also attended by Deputy Minister of Economy Emil Tarasyan, Head of IT and Innovation Department Naira Nikoghosyan, Director of Enterprise Incubator Foundation Bagrat Yengibaryan, and Director of Microsoft Innovation Center Armenia Yeva Hyusyan.

The parties expressed their willingness to continue mutually beneficial cooperation. In particular, it was agreed to establish a bilateral working group to discuss the directions of further cooperation with Microsoft, as well as the further steps toward obtaining Microsoft-licensed software package by Government of Armenia. The achievements of the working group will be fixed in a new agreement to be signed with Microsoft.

Karen Chshmarityan proposed to continue the partnership with Microsoft in order to promote a climate for innovation sector development in Armenia, and, in particular, through the establishment of “cloud” and mobile solutions regional center in Armenia and implementation of long-term research projects in conjunction with the Armenian specialists working at the Microsoft Head Office.

At the same time, it was proposed to take active steps for the application of the Microsoft-licensed software package in the Armenian government, expansion of projects in higher education in collaboration with Microsoft, cyber security cooperation, development of solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises to increase the efficiency to meet the demands of the local market, and several other issues.