YEREVAN. - Armenia’s government shouldn’t ruin the technologies due to which Armenia survived in the 90s, Armenian National Congress (ANC) MP and ex-PM Hrant Bagratyan said in the parliament at the discussion of the bill on raising the excise tax on cigarettes, vodka, petrol and diesel fuel, as well as its application to gas for cars. 

Even if Armenia had technological innovations over the last 25 years, there were only two of them: one was the re-launching of the Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) for the first time in the world, the second being the switching to gas as a car fuel, when the republic faced the serious issue of energy supply, the ex-PM said.

“This helped us survive in the 90s. This, it can be said, is an Armenian innovation and many of our businessmen are spreading it in Russia and Ukraine. This helped us lower the share of energy in the GDP, and one shouldn’t constantly try to raise it,” Bagratyan said.