During his big May 8 press conference, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan couldn’t say how many factories have been opened in Armenia over the past year and which of those factories are the largest ones.

“With its decisions, the government has granted privileges for 49 investment projects that have helped investors invest AMD 255 billion and create 4,000 new jobs. Privileges have been granted for 7 investment projects with respect to the VAT, and through those projects, AMD 21 billion is being invested and nearly 450 new jobs are being created.

For instance, 51,000 jobs have appeared in our field of view after the revolution, and it is assumed that some of those jobs were shadow jobs,” he said.

In response to the specifying question on the number of new factories in Armenia, the Prime Minister said the following: “I can’t state an exact number because first we need to understand what we mean by ‘factory’. For instance, government officials participated in the opening of a domestic appliance factory in Merdzavan, and then the presses wrote that it is a “fake” factory. Later, we gave them a privilege for imports based on a government decision. Since I’m not interested in many large factories so that I can have my share, I can’t state an exact number.”