STEPANAKERT. – President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR/Artsakh), Bako Sahakyan, on Wednesday chaired the first Cabinet meeting in 2017.

In his remarks at the event, Sahakyan touched upon the socioeconomic figures, the carried out activities, accomplishments and challenges in the year past, Central Information Department of the Office of the NKR President informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

The President stressed that 2016 was a quite difficult and hard year for Artsakh, and its people and economy. As per Sahakyan, the four-day war in early April—when Azerbaijan had unleashed a large-scale military aggression against the NKR—was a blow to the normal economic development of the country, affecting virtually every branch of its economy.

But Bako Sahakyan noted that notwithstanding all the difficulties, Artsakh managed to maintain the stipulated pace of the economic development in 2016, the positive dynamics in the main branches of the economy, and record a 9-percent GDP growth.

At the same time, however, the President assigned to the Cabinet of Ministers to carry out a deep analysis of the results of the year past, paying special attention to the issues and shortcomings that took place in the work, and undertake necessary steps to eliminate them.

Speaking of the plans for 2017, the NKR President highlighted the need for maintaining high the quality of work to be carried out, the degree of coordination, the implementation of the duties, and efficient utilization of financial means.

“Everything that was outlined and adopted by the appropriate laws and government decisions should be implemented unconditionally and in a consistent manner,” noted Bako Sahakyan, and gave specific instructions for proper implementation of the planned programs.