Armenian parliamentarians cancel shifting to daylight saving time

YEREVAN, February 9, /ARKA/. Armenia will no longer shift to daylight saving time according to a package of amendments into the law 'On the Order of Calculating Time on the RA Territory” approved Thursday by the National Assembly in the second and final reading.

To date, the difference with Greenwich Meantime Zone is + 4 hours, 3 hours with other European countries, 9 hours with the East Coast in the USA and 12 hours with the West Coast.

“We think that the changes are justified because the shift to daylight saving time caused many problems for the population,’ said Karine Ajemyan, a lawmaker from the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, presenting the bill.

She argued that in recent years more than 80 countries have refused from shifting to daylight saving time. However, this is still practiced in the USA, Canada, almost whole Europe, and Russia. The countries which stopped doing so include the states geographically close to the equator as well as Japan, China, Singapore, Estonia, states of Central Asia and CIS.

“Healthcare specialists consider winter and autumn as “the seasons causing stress” for human organism that has to adapt to climate changes, and time shifting causes another additional stress”, Ajemyan said.

In his turn, the head of oppositional parliamentary faction Heritage, Stepan Safaryan, said that the bill adoption will raise protests as refusal from time shifting will result in greater electricity use.

Armenia is in time zone GMT +3, but today the country is not in its real-time zone. The shift was made in the 30's of the past century, when hour hands on all locks in the former USSR were moved one hour forward with Armenia appearing in GMT +4 time zone. When the daylight saving time was introduced, for seven months a year the country was in the time zone GMT +5.The next step will be the transition to GMT +3 time zone that is more rational for Armenian geographical position. -0-