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The goal of the sectoral policy is to make Armenia a country of high technological industry, and the development of high technologies, communication, digitalisation and military-industry complex are the ways of reaching it. In 2022, the work of the sector was directed to the implementation of following goals: development of defensive technologies – military industry, research programmes, introduction of technologies, prevention of talent drain and boosting of new flow, high technological industry, as well as startup and development of engineering ecosystem and launch of projects and product in external markets, digitalization of economy and management system and increase of export volumes. The RA Minister of High Tech Industry Robert Khachatryan said about this, presenting the budget execution for 2022 of the Ministry.

In the financial year, the specified budget of the Ministry on 4 programmes and 24 measures of the state budget in budgeting format was 12.8 billion AMD, the performance – 11.5 billion AMD or 89.5%.

The allocated means were mainly directed to the maintenance of the Ministry, the coordination of state policy elaboration programmes and the implementation of monitoring, the digitalisation of technological industry ecosystem and the market development programme.

The Minister singled out training of specialists and higher educational institution-private sector cooperation event and noted that as a result of its implementation the specialists’ education was provided, online business and other courses in a number of directions: engineering, cyber safety, artificial intelligence, technological entrepreneurship, etc were organized. 1779 applicants presented applications to take part in the courses.

Robert Khachatryan also answered the deputies’ questions.

The Chair of the Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs Gevorg Papoyan was interested in the implementation of the digitalisation process strategy.

The Minister mentioned that the issue is in the centre of their attention and underscored that from the beginning the Ministry was fully responsible for implementation of the digitalisation process, but now Council for the Management of Information Systems (CMIS) was set up and within its framework an agency which will be involved in the implementation of the strategy or digitalization process.

According to the rapporteur, time was necessary in order to carry out legislative and legal regulations, and the agency to begin the works. “We can record that we have some progress. There is a formed Council, staff members and meetings rather frequently take place headed by the RA Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan.”

It was noted that having limited budget, the Ministry involved experts and some work had already been done with their help. “We worked out 13 standards connected with the digitalization, which had been introduced and are under use. Our other colleagues can make use of those standards while organizing the digitalization process.” The Minister informed.

The annual performance on 3 programmes by the RA Ministry of High Technology Industry was 8.6 billion AMD (86.3%). The RA Minister of Finance Vahe Ghazaryan voiced about this.

Let us note that on May 30, at the joint sitting of the RA NA Standing Committees on Economic Affairs and on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs headed by Babken Tunyan and Gevorg Papoyan the debates of the state budget execution 2022 continued.