Category: 2022

 12:14,

YEREVAN, JUNE 28, ARMENPRESS. Tourism sector in Armenia is gradually recovering after a certain decline connected with the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 war, President of the Armenian Tourism Federation Mekhak Apresyan said in an interview to Armenpress.

The number of incoming tourists has reached around 250,000 in the first quarter of 2022, which, according to Apresyan, is 2,9 times more than the figure of the same period of the previous year. “But, unfortunately, it is less compared to the first quarter of 2020 because, as you know, the pandemic has not started yet that time”, he said.

Every place in Armenia is interesting for foreign visitors. Apresyan says the most difficult question is that which direction is the most attractive for them.

He says that each province and community has its attractions, and all tourists spending their vacations in Armenia are aware of this. “Packages are formed based on the purpose of the visit to Armenia, as well as based on their taste and expectations”, he notes.

Mekhak Apresyan says that most of the tourists visiting Armenia are individuals, as the group tourism has not totally resumed yet. There are no group visits from Europe, Japan, China, US, etc. “There is still caution connected with the instable situation in the region”.

As for the Russia-Ukraine relations, he said that many Russians visited Armenia in early March, but not for tourism purposes. “Due to the Ukraine crises, nearly 115,000 visits have been registered from Russia, 4000-5000 from Ukraine and Belarus. The active season starts in mid-March. The visitors are mostly Iranians who prefer to celebrate their New Year in our country”, he said.

Now there are visits from Russia for tourism purposes.

“The Russian Ruble was stabilized, but in early March it depreciated, the tickets were quite expensive and were not favorable for tourism purposes”, he said.

Commenting on the question that many Russian and Ukrainian tourists complain over the high prices of renting an apartment in Armenia, Mekhak Apresyan said the prices of apartments for daily rent have not increased much.

“Apartments were mainly provided for daily rent, but when you multiply the daily rent by a month, you see that the amount is the same. Before the Ukrainian crisis, the price of apartments for daily rent in our country has been at least 10,000 drams. As the demand rose, there was a situation when they were removing locals living for a rent, and were increasing the prices. But this had no connection with tourism, the demand increased, and the people were ready to pay”, he said.  

As for the marketing policy required for tourism development, Mekhak Apresyan said many important systematic measures need to be taken today such as reforms, personnel policy.

“Armenia’s legislation should be in accordance with today’s challenges and developments, should meet today’s conditions. It is necessary to improve the border passing procedures”, he says.

He called the mechanism existing before the pandemic good, as Armenia had a visa-free regime for more than 60 countries of the world.

“For the other countries the visa was also very simple, people were able to easily obtain it online. However, restrictions were imposed because of coronavirus, and these mechanisms started operating in a limited way, but now the opportunity of resuming them is being discussed”, the President of the Armenian Tourism Federation said.  

 

Reporting by Liana Sargsyan

 13:44,

YEREVAN, JUNE 28, ARMENPRESS. The ruling Civil Contract faction of the Parliament of Armenia will discuss the issue of stripping opposition MPs of their mandates over nonattendance in coming days, Speaker of Parliament Alen Simonyan told reporters at a briefing today.

“We will discuss this issue in the faction, as well as with the Board in coming days, whether it is worth or not, because the law allows it. There are two opinions: according to one opinion, the opposition has largely deprived itself of its mandates. Frankly, I can’t imagine how our colleagues will return back to his hall after setting such a high bar and then staying “under” that bar. The other opinion is that everything what they did should be “worn out””, the Speaker said.

The Speaker said that currently there are 10 MPs, whose absences are more than allowed, which enables to strip them of mandates. He didn’t rule out that oppositions may also be stripped of the positions of the Vice Speaker and the Chairmen of Standing Committees.

“Opposition is engaged in fight for power and is already doing this openly. Leaving everything aside, they are now interpreting and explaining why they should not be stripped of their mandates. This has been a fight for power from the very first day, this is a fight for power for the supporters of both the ARF and Robert Kocharyan, this is a matter of having a mandate in order to have immunity to go and hit the policeman and say that they are a Member of Parliament”, he said.

Commenting on comparisons with the parliamentarian disobedience in 2018, the Speaker said that neither Nikol Pashinyan nor any opposition lawmaker had filled the number of absences that which was required for stripping of mandates. He didn’t consider these comparisons appropriate.

 14:25,

YEREVAN, JUNE 28, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Mher Grigoryan received today the delegation led by Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Alexey Gordeyev, Armenpress correspondent reports.

During the meeting the sides discussed a number of issues relating to the trade-economic, investment, education and science sectors.

After the meeting Alexey Gordeyev told reporters that there are around 200 legislative documents on cooperation between Armenia and Russia relating to different areas.

“Today we discussed how to expand the potential of this cooperation. We see that trade turnover grows this year, and there is confidence that the trade turnover volume will reach 3 billion dollars in the future. But on the other hand I should note that there is an opportunity to increase the investments for creating joint enterprises both in industry and agriculture field”, Alexey Gordeyev said.

He said that they have also discussed the issue of using the potential in education and science sectors. “Here it is necessary to create right cooperation chains. In addition, we have also thoroughly discussed the issues connected with mutual certification of products of Armenian and Russian markets so that our goods are perceived as a local production”, Alexey Gordeyev said.

The Armenian Deputy PM and the Russian State Duma Vice Speaker have also discussed investment-related issues. Alexey Gordeyev said that investments are being made in different enterprises and organizations of Armenia and they comprise around 40% of Armenia’s economy. “In other words, our business has a serious presence in Armenia, but we would like to change the quality of investments and create a joint production, and we will sell its products not only in the Armenian and Russian markets, but also will export it to other markets. For this purpose a very interesting and substantive discussion was held. For example, we discussed to build an effectively operating join technopark in Armenia in the future”, he noted.

 

Reporting by Karen Khachatryan

 14:58,

YEREVAN, JUNE 28, ARMENPRESS. Anna Hakobyan, the spouse of the Armenian prime minister, was hosted at the Nice City Hall on June 28 on the sidelines of her visit in France, her Office said.

She was welcomed by First Deputy Mayor of Nice Anthony Borré, who said that the Mayor of Nice is currently in Paris on a working visit.

Anthony Borré said that Nice and Yerevan are sister cities, but the firm ties of Nice with Armenia have been established after the 1988 earthquake.

“The Armenian community of Nice is one of our prides, because ethnic Armenians, being as full and law-abiding citizens of France, preserve their Armenian values and roots, the vivid evidence of which is the Parsamian College”, Anthony Borré said.

He noted that they highly value the efforts of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in eliminating corruption, adding that the development of democracy in Armenia is obvious after his election.

In her remarks Anna Hakobyan thanked for the warm welcome and stated that the Armenian-French relations are exemplary in all areas, be it political, diplomatic, educational, cultural or healthcare.

“I think there is a big potential to expand and deepen the cooperation with Côte d’Azur especially in areas of exchange of tourism experience and innovative technologies, which are also sharply developing in Armenia. I hope the sun-lover residents of Nice will have new experiments and rich impressions after selecting Armenia as a tourism destination”, she said.

Anna Hakobyan also thanked the city authorities for the special care to the Armenian community of Nice.

“Really being law-abiding citizens of Nice, the representatives of the local Armenian community are strongly connected with the Homeland, the language and history. They are Armenia-Nice bridge, which, I am sure, will strengthen with new initiatives and productive meetings”, Anna Hakobyan said, inviting the Nice city authorities and the meeting participants to Armenia.

At the end of the meeting Anna Hakobyan visited the park near the City Hall dedicated to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims. The representatives of the Armenian community said that the Nice City Hall will soon renovate this park.

 16:39,

YEREVAN, JUNE 28, ARMENPRESS. 42 Yerevan school of the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies has been included in the list of the WURI Top 100 Innovative Universities alongside universities like MIT, Stanford, and UC Berkeley.

42 Yerevan is ranked 8th in the list and 1st in the WURI Top 50 for the category of Ethical Value.

Universities on this list are ranked based on innovativeness, implementability and impact.

42 Yerevan is a tuition-free programming school designed to train the ultimate masters of code. The program is run by TUMO Labs, the EU-powered educational program within the EU TUMO Convergence Center for Engineering and Applied Science.

 17:18,

YEREVAN, JUNE 28, ARMENPRESS. Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia Armen Grigoryan met with French Co-Chair of OSCE Minsk Group Brice Roquefeuil in Paris, France, the Office of Armen Grigoryan said.

During the meeting Armen Grigoryan and Brice Roquefeuil discussed and emphasized the necessity for the comprehensive and lasting settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship.

Armen Grigoryan briefed the French Co-Chair on the regional security situation, the potential challenges and the stance of the Armenian side towards their solution. He also presented the Brussels process of normalizing the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

 17:23,

YEREVAN, 28 JUNE, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs “Armenpress” that today, 28 June, USD exchange rate down by 1.25 drams to 408.39 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 1.57 drams to 431.95 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate up by 0.03 drams to 7.72 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 2.84 drams to 499.79 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price down by 62.20 drams to 23979.40 drams. Silver price up by 7.04 drams to 281.77 drams. Platinum price stood at 16414.1 drams.

 18:09,

YEREVAN, JUNE 27, ARMENPRESS. The Vice President of the National Assembly of Armenia Ruben Rubinyan met with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland Marcin Przydacz and the delegation led by him on June 28.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the National Assembly, the Head of the Armenia-Poland Parliamentary Friendship Group Arusyak Julhakyan and the Chair of the Standing Committee on European Integration Arman Yeghoyan were present at the meeting.

Welcoming the guests, Ruben Rubinyan emphasized the high level of relations between Armenia and Poland, highlighted the effective cooperation.

The sides attached importance to the effective work of friendship groups in the development of cooperation between the parliaments of the two countries.

Issues related to the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations were discussed.

Ruben Rubinyan presented the current situation in the region after the 44-day war and the unresolved issues.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland Marcin Przydacz highlighted the deepening of bilateral ties, the development of cooperation in the economic sphere. According to the Polish diplomat, Armenia is a valuable partner for Poland. The guest appreciated the continuous process of democratic reforms in Armenia.

 18:15,

YEREVAN, JUNE 28, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan received Ambassador of Arab Republic of Egypt to the Republic of Armenia Bahaa El Din Bahgat Dessouki, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister expressed satisfaction with the current level of the political dialogue between Armenia and Egypt, attaching importance to the implementation of consistent steps aimed at developing economic cooperation. In this regard, Nikol Pashinyan stressed the necessity of discussing and implementing specific programs and ideas by the governments of the two countries, as well as expanding the agenda of bilateral relations. The Prime Minister praised the role of the Ambassador in promoting cooperation between Armenia and Egypt, expressing confidence that his efforts will yield new results.

In turn, Bahaa El Din Bahgat Dessouki noted that the Egyptian government is interested in developing relations with Armenia in various directions.

During the meeting, the interlocutors attached importance to organizing high-level reciprocal visits, during which it will be possible to discuss more substantively the mutually beneficial projects and prospects for their implementation.

The sides exchanged views on the development of cooperation in air communication, tourism and other spheres of the economy.