Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan today chaired a regular consultation devoted to the anti-crisis policy for neutralization of the consequences of the coronavirus with government officials.

The Prime Minister said the following in the beginning: “The government has been working on a daily basis for almost a month, and our goal has initially been and still is to approve measures aimed at mitigating the social and economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. Currently, the government has approved 11 measures, and another measure was approved through a written procedure today, meaning there are 12 measures, and I believe the time has come for the government to sum up the activities of this stage in order to understand which of the measures are efficient and which are inefficient and what changes we need to make to our approaches and tactics.”

Head of the Central Bank Artur Javadyan presented the results of the first and second measures. Based on the results, 214 loans have been approved, part of the amount of the loans will be used to pay salaries of 2,055 employees, 770 loan applications have been approved (there are 479 microloans for the agriculture sector), and based on the results of monitoring, most of the 479 approved agricultural loans are already serving their goal.

Minister of Economy Tigran Khachatryan touched upon the course of implementation of the third measure and stated that 102 loan applications have been approved.

Chairman of the State Revenue Committee Davit Ananyan reported that 6,149 beneficiaries have already been paid through the fifth social support measure.

Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Zaruhi Batoyan reported on the course of implementation of the social assistance programs, stating that 964 beneficiaries have been provided with assistance through the fourth social support measure and 6,723 beneficiaries have been supported through the sixth social support measure. She also stated that the beneficiaries are still being identified and that the circle might be expanded.

While exchanging views, the government officials stated that the measures for neutralization of the economic consequences of the coronavirus are effective and considered the implementation of measures to mitigate the social consequences.

The Prime Minister assigned to continue monitoring, track the progress of the programs and submit interim reports on a daily basis.