Armenian president sums up results of first term

YEREVAN, December 17. /ARKA/. Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan summed up the results of his presidency at the 14th congress of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) Saturday.

“Almost five years ago a new opportunity emerged for our state, for our people. Time offered a new starting point to our people. An opportunity and an imperative to make the structures formed in the preceding fifteen years deliver their best for the benefit of the people. As it often happens in history, this time too, the opportunity was accompanied, or rather was imposed upon us by demanding challenges,” Sargsyan said.

According to him, the society shuddered from the outburst of social and political intolerance accumulated over years: another war, which erupted in the neighborhood, shut down the borders, and for a moment, the Armenian economy sagged under the impact of the financial and economic crisis.

“The problems and painful issues that had been set aside for almost fifteen years, piled up and demanded immediate resolution. The people, more than ever, were waiting to make the best of the benefits accumulated during the years-long period of favorable environment,” Sargsyan said.

The president pointed out that the ruling party was able to bring the country out of the financial and economic crisis, ease the tax burden for small and medium enterprises, save thousands of jobs in the mining and construction sectors and provide a serious impetus to the creation of new jobs in food production and light industry, to keep the financial system intact and do things that even much more powerful countries failed to accomplish.

“Still during the crisis, we were able to contain the spike in energy, gas and water tariffs. We have built hundreds of kilometres of water and gas pipes, renovated rural roads and initiated the construction of an unprecedented highway infrastructure. We were able to take communication and information technologies to most remote corners of our country,” Sargsyan said.

The president stressed that the authorities had started, step by step, to marginalize the corruption and abuse that had been getting rooted in our country for decades.

“We encouraged and promoted young and well-educated politicians and statesmen. We launched and brought to completion a number of critical official investigations. We put forth our collective will against connivance. We rejected outright a malicious practice of using force against journalists, opened up the media and restored the right of TV channels to access the spectrum,” he said.

The president assured that the new generation of Armenian citizens will learn about impunity only from their parent’s memories.-0-