Author: Markos Nalchajian

Armenia Hopeful For End to Coronavirus Crisis

Markos Nalchajian
July 30,  2020

Healthcare workers in Armenia

YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan expressed hope on Thursday that Armenia will practically overcome its coronavirus crisis by September, citing a “substantial” drop in daily infections recorded by the health authorities over the last two weeks.

“As of yesterday, we had less than 9,000 active [coronavirus] cases for the first time since June 11,” Pashinyan argued during a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.

“We had 259 new infections yesterday,” he said. “We had less than 400 daily cases for the sixth consecutive day. We previously had such a situation … on May 24.”

The Armenian Ministry of Health reported an average of 550-600 cases a day in the first half of July. The daily numbers of new cases exceeded 730 at one point in late June.

Deaths directly or indirectly caused by COVID-19 have also fallen in recent days. The ministry said on Thursday morning that 5 more people died from the disease in the past 24 hours, bringing the country’s official death toll to 728. It reported approximately 15 fatalities a day from July 6 through the end of last week.

Pashinyan attributed the decreased numbers to a stricter enforcement of anti-epidemic rules set by his government and people’s greater compliance with them. “We all must continue to follow the rules just as strictly no matter how uncomfortable and unpleasant they are for us,” he said.

The prime minister urged Armenians to continue to wear mandatory face masks in all public spaces, practice social distancing and frequently wash hands. “We hope that each of you will take this responsibility and confront this challenge so that we can declare the end of the crisis in September,” he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan told the Armenian parliament on July 14 that the government hopes to cut the daily number of new cases to roughly 140 by the beginning of September. He said this would allow the government to reopen the country’s schools shut down by it in March.

Avinyan, who coordinates the government’s response to the pandemic, announced on Wednesday that his office is now working on detailed safety guidelines that should allow libraries, museums, theaters and other cultural institutions to also reopen soon.

A total of 38,196 coronavirus cases have been registered in Armenia to date, making it one of the hardest hit counties worldwide.

Armenian opposition groups have for months criticized the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. Some of them say that the authorities never properly enforced a nationwide lockdown imposed in late March and lifted it too soon.

Pashinyan and other senior government officials have dismissed the criticism. They insist that their strategy of tackling the pandemic has largely worked and spared Armenia more severe economic consequences.

Armenpress: Armenian businesses record success on international level

Markos Nalchajian

Armenian businesses record success on international level

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 17:58,

Armenia is known to be a great country with smart opportunities. In spite of the difficulties in the economy, the government and private sector work hard on developing high-tech and business development. With low taxes, educated and low-cost labor, and an investment-friendly environment Armenia enjoys a favorable position among the countries to start a business and grow globally. As a result a win-win situation is created between growth-minded businesses and developing countries, like Armenia.

Education, Research and Development

Education in Armenia allows to lay solid foundations for the prosperity of the country. Academic educational atmosphere, hard-work and motivation made it possible to reach significant success in many fields for centuries. Armenia has a very high level of education among the CIS countries with a comparably high adult-literacy rate. Recently a lot of universities, companies, foundations make a huge input on specialization in information and communication technologies and business.

Research and Development is considered one of the key drivers of growth in the country. The IT sector has been expanded during the recent years thanks to the research and development branches in Armenia by global tech giants including Microsoft, Oracle, National Instruments, etc.  Government and sectoral representatives have been implementing a number of new initiatives for revealing and developing R&D potential. The key focus has been on new educational initiatives, which are believed to boost the country’s technology and R&D.  An outstanding example of which is TUMO- a center for creative technologies offering education centers for teens specializing in technology and design. Four TUMO centers operate in Yerevan, Gyumri, Dilijan, Stepanakert in Armenia, 2 international centers in Beirut and Paris. Tumo Berlin is planned to be opened in October 2020 and TUMO Tirana, Moscow and Tokyo are on the list. The International network of TUMO centers is expanding focusing on several targets: programming, animation, filmmaking, graphic design, 3D modelling, game development, music, drawing, photography and robotics.

Information and Communication Technologies is one of the most desired industries, so many laboratories, technology centers open in the country and contribute to having high-quality specialists in the sphere. This makes Armenian workforce very competitive on a local level and attractive on international level. Armenian specialists are considered highly productive among global ICT communities, making the sector attractive to foreign investors. Besides Armenia is considered to be a low-cost location for offshore development, where salaries are competitive with those of many outsourcing countries such as Israel or China.

Here you can find out more about some competitive Armenian businesses and startups taking Armenian entrepreneurship to new heights. And given the size of Armenian economy any investment and  profit brought by them is very likely to be significant.

Startups

 

PicsArt

Armenia is a true heaven for startups, which is proved by the dramatic number of startups created in the country.Launched in 2011 PicsArt grew from a 10 people startup to one of the world’s top photo editing apps. By 2020 the app was downloaded up to 600 million times, which increased after pandemic, as people had more free time and needed to use their creativity. The number of edits on the platform grew by 15-20% and the number of active users per month exceeded 150 million. The headquarters of the company are both in Yerevan, Armenia and San-Francisco, USA and offices are located in Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo and LA.

Krisp

Some startups have been globally recognized and successful in the age of coronavirus and Krisp is another good example, which was featured by prominent media like Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post as one of the top tools to make remote work more effective during the coronavirus outbreak. It is a noise-reduction app, which mutes the background noise during calls making life easier while working from home.

Robin the Robot

Expper Technologies creates robots for corporate businesses intended for providing customer-care. Their most famous creation is Robin the Robot. It is a social robot, companion for children when they are hospitalized and helps them during medical treatment creating positive experiences. You can read on Forbes how Robin the Robot comforts kids in hospitals and helps with Covid-19. They started sales in Armenia in 2019 and now extended to the US market.

Prominent startups targeting international market also include: Arloopa– Armenian project working on augmented and virtual reality, 2D and 3D content, SoloLearn– educational platform making learning programming languages fun, which was included in top 10 fastest growing start-ups in Silicon Valley, CityBugs–  a system allowing city authorities to quickly address issues when citizens report them, Teamable– a recruiting tech company, which helps companies to connect to, engage with and hire top talent referrals.

Service Industry

ProDigi

The opportunity to provide  high-quality remote services (also big thanks to Covid-19) makes Armenian companies very attractive on an international level. The educational background and constant strive for development help Armenia-based companies like ProDigi  digital marketing agency provide services to the UK, US, Canada, Singapore, Hong-Kong and to other major business hubs. It feels like digital knowledge is the sun-kissed apricot of the marketing industry, which the company successfully exports to big markets. The process is accompanied with providing high-quality services with great communication and interpersonal skills which makes the foreign clientele feel at home. Thus, providing services to different countries the company brings economic growth to Armenia by paying taxes and generating in-country value. The business strives to contribute to local community growth by employing fresh graduates and turning them into professionals tracking international trends.

Digital Caramel

A related experience also gained Digital Caramel, which successfully manages to  provide digital services to most of the CIS countries and Russia. Besides the agency now is considering entering Western and Asian markets. This industry allows it to have a headquarter office in Armenia and easily conquer new markets by breaking the old rules and language barriers. The company services are entirely targeted to the international market, which results in contributing to the country budget. Importantly, the creation of new employment opportunities and jobs is exclusively done in Armenia increasing to the number of new workplaces.

Arara

The economical development of the country is closely connected with the tourism industry, which recently has been strongly hit by the coronavirus outbreak. Armenia was booming as a cultural travel destination and the hospitality was on a very high level, which allowed travel agencies like Arara Tour to expand their services to the whole Caucasus region and Central Asia. Operating from head offices in Armenia, Georgia and Central Asia the company organizes tours directed to 8 different countries. In fact bringing the profit to Armenia from tours to Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Turkmenistan. Despite the massive fall of the international tourist arrivals, the experts in the field are optimistic and hopeful about the recovery of industry. So does the agency with perspectives on opening new branches in Ukraine and Russia.

IT and Advanced Technologies

As you may have noticed most of the startups were IT startups, which indicates the favorable business climate that IT companies enjoy in Armenia and explains why it is called “The Silicon Mountains”. Armenia has extensive experience, with large multinational IT companies having operations in the country (Microsoft, Intel, Synopsys, Oracle, Cisco, National Instruments, etc). Most of Armenian IT companies specialize in software development like

SFL

SFL is a software development and consulting company which brings digital transformation to a number of businesses on the globe. Using innovative technologies the company delivers personalized multichannel user-experience with higher lifetime value. Founded in 2006, now the company has headquarters in Yerevan and Chicago with over 100 specialists.

10Web

10 Web is a complete WordPress managing platform with a full suite of tools from cloud hosting to page builder to easily design, develop and launch websites, as well as manage, optimize and maintain existing websites. 10Web supports tens of thousands of clients ranging from small businesses to global enterprises. Company hosts over 1,000 websites and its products have been downloaded over 20 million times.

Successful investments and collaborations across different industries in the international market suggest that Armenia is a prefered destination for global players. The country’s potential is being effectively used, but the numbers and success indicate even a better future.




Armenia applies to EAEU colleagues over recent ban on sale of Armenian fruits in Russia

Markos Nalchajian

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 16:34,

YEREVAN, JULY 20, ARMENPRESS. Armenia’s State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition has applied to Russia and the EAEU colleagues to take actions over the recent anti-competitive action on banning the sale of Armenian fruits in Russia, the SCPEC told Armenpress.

“Today SCPEC Chairman Gegham Gevorgyan has sent official letters to Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia Igor Artemev and Member of the Board – Minister in charge of Competition and Antitrust regulation at the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Serik Zhumangarin over the recent ban by the executives of Moscow’s Food City market on sale of fruits exported from Armenia. In the letters the SCPEC Chairman said the aforementioned actions do not have an economic explanation. They undermine the free sale of goods between EAEU member states and are a demonstration of a discriminative attitude. Thus, unequal conditions are created in the foreign market, with the violation of general competition rules which are enshrined in the EAEU treaty”, the SCPEC said in a statement.

Gegham Gevorgyan expressed hope that the Russian and EAEU colleagues will discuss the matter and will take actions to restore the equal competition conditions to rule out such anti-competition actions in the future.

Trucks loaded with Armenian goods were removed from Moscow’s Food City market in the night of July 16. There were alarms that the goods are already being spoiled. There were some suspicions that Azerbaijanis stand behind this action and later it was confirmed as one of the owners of the market is an ethnic Azerbaijani. On July 18 hundreds of Russian-Armenians started buying all Armenian apricots existing in the trucks.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Turkish press: Turkey’s missiles, drones at Azerbaijan’s service: Official – Turkey News

Markos Nalchajian
  • 09:18:00

Turkey has declared military assistance to Azerbaijan amid the country’s border clashes with Armenia, in the second day of talks with Azeri defense officials in the capital Ankara on July 17.

“Our armed unmanned aerial vehicles, ammunition and missiles with our experience, technology and capabilities are at Azerbaijan’s service,” said İsmail Demir, the head of Presidency of Defense Industries, an affiliate of the Turkish Presidency in a statement.

“We need to show the world that the two brother countries are in full unity. One nation, two states,” Demir wrote on Twitter after the meeting with Azerbaijani Deputy Defense Minister Ramiz Tahirov and Army Commander of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic Kerem Mustafayev.

He stressed that Turkey will lend new defense systems to Azerbaijan and will work together with Baku for the modernization, maintenance and repair of the country’s defense systems.

The show of support comes a day after Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar met Ramiz Tahirov in Ankara on July 16.

“Armenia will pay for what they have done and be brought to account,” said Akar after the meeting, showing full support to Azerbaijan.

Recent border clashes with Armenia have resulted in the killing of 11 Azerbaijani soldiers and injured four. In retaliatory attacks, Azerbaijani officials said nearly 100 Armenian troops were killed.

Armenian National Committee of Australia Launches New Chapter

Markos Nalchajian
July 7, 2020

Members of the ANC Australia’s new Western Sydney chapter

WESTERN SYDNEY, Australia—The Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU) has launched a Western Sydney Branch to serve the local public affairs priorities of the region’s Armenian-Australian community.

Formerly an Administrator at the ANC-AU Head Office, Michael Kolokossian will Chair the ANC-AU – Western Sydney Branch. He is currently studying Bachelor of Law & Arts at Macquarie University, majoring in International Law and Global Governance.

Kolokossian is joined by Anjel Keshishian and Evette Khoushabeh.

Keshishian graduated Monash University with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Psychology and Political Science, while Khoushabeh is studying a Bachelor of Law and Security Studies at Macquarie University.

ANC-AU Executive Director Haig Kayserian congratulated the new ANC-AU – Western Sydney team, who have begun meeting with local leaders and setting local priorities.

“The Armenian National Committee of Australia National Board is very pleased to have achieved this long-standing goal of having a Branch set up to advance the local interests of the sizeable Armenian-Australian community of Greater Western Sydney,” said Kayserian.

“This very capable team of young professionals will be focus their efforts, like all our branches, at the local and state government levels – the latter in coordination with our Head Office.”

ANC-AU – Western Sydney Branch Chair, Michael Kolokossian added: “We look forward to meeting key community and political stakeholders to advance local priorities, as well as assist with the advancement for our organization’s global priorities, like justice for the Armenian Genocide and peace in the Republic of Artsakh.”

Parliamentary committee approves Hovhannes Khachatryan’s candidacy for CBA Council member

Markos Nalchajian

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 10:33, 8 July, 2020

YEREVAN, JULY 8, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian parliamentary standing committee on financial-credit and budgetary affairs unanimously approved the candidacy of Hovhannes Khachatryan for the vacant position of the member of the Central Bank’s Council.

Khachatryan’s candidacy has been nominated by the ruling My Step faction.

“I think there is really no problem with the CB mandate now. What is put on the CB today in terms of ensuring price and financial stability, is in accordance with the latest trends and the practice of successful central banks. In this sense I assess the CB as one of the best successful central banks in developing countries”, Hovhannes Khachatryan said in his remarks.

During the session the lawmakers asked various questions to the candidate.

Khachatryan’s candidacy will be debated at the Parliament’s plenary session.

 

Reporting by Anna Grigoryan; Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Ghazinyan: I don’t think there will be "kamikaze" authorities in Armenia that will consider generating anti-Russian mood

Markos Nalchajian
News, am, Armenia
July 3 2020
Ghazinyan: I don’t think there will be “kamikaze” authorities in Armenia that will consider generating anti-Russian mood Ghazinyan: I don’t think there will be “kamikaze” authorities in Armenia that will consider generating anti-Russian mood

16:32, 03.07.2020
                  

CivilNet: Entrance Exams For Universities Kick Off in Armenia

Markos Nalchajian
CIVILNET.AM

3 July, 2020 21:24 
The university entrance exams kicked off in Armenia on July 2. On the first day, students studying foreign languages, including English, will take their exams. How does the government organize the entrance exams with thousands of students gathering in various exam halls while the number of new coronavirus cases is increasing everyday?
 

COVID-19: Armenia reports 593 new cases, 473 recoveries in one day

Markos Nalchajian

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 11:09, 2 July, 2020

YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. 593 new cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have been registered in Armenia in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 26,658, the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention said today.

473 more patients have recovered. The total number of recoveries has reached 15,036.

6 people have died in one day, raising the death toll to 459.

The number of active cases stands at 11,010.

The number of people who had a coronavirus but died from other disease has reached 153 (4 new such cases).

So far, 115,765 people have passed COVID-19 testing.

Reporting by Lilit Demuryan; Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Asbarez: Remembering May 28 One Month After its Virtual Celebration

Markos Nalchajian

The virtual presentation debuted on May 28

Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s virtual May 28 celebration organized jointly by the Armenian Youth Federation of Western United States, Eastern United States, and Canada, was an unprecedented success. With more than 20,000 viewers online, the virtual event featured celebratory messages from each of the three AYF regions, along with cultural performances from AYF members and renowned Armenian performers from the United States, Canada, and Armenia.

AYF Western United States (AYF-WUS) Central Executive member Chris Simonian noted, “The victory achieved on May 28, 1918, will forever be regarded as one of the most important events in the history, and collective identity, of the Armenian nation – a victory without which the independent Republic of Armenia and a place we can truly call home would not have been possible. Working with our compatriots from the Eastern Region and Canada, to have an event which was so warmly welcomed by our community, was an appropriate reflection of what May 28 means to us – uniting for a greater good.”

The AYF’s May 28 virtual celebration is a reflection of the resilience and promise of the Armenian youth. By not allowing a worldwide pandemic to come in the way of celebrating our victories, we understand it is our duty, as the children of our heroes, to celebrate this day every year; to remember their sacrifice, to carry the torch, and to honor our nation.

Reflecting on the tri-regional virtual event, Orange County “Aghpiur Serop” AYF Junior member, Patil Tutunjian, expressed, “As an AYF Junior, it was really inspiring to see how AYF and the work it does goes beyond each of our agoumps’ walls. During these times of quarantine, this event really proved how AYF never quits. AYF truly made its mark as we watched in all of our own homes reminding us of the bigger picture. I can’t wait to transfer and be an AYF member!”

Founded in 1933, the Armenian Youth Federation is the largest and the most influential Armenian youth organization globally, working to advance the social, political, educational, and cultural awareness among Armenian youth.