ArmInfo. In January 2020, Armenia will hold an extended discussion with international partners in order to understand in which direction, at what pace, and most importantly, at what means the sector of the military-industrial complex will develop. Minister of High- Tech Industry Hakob Arshakyan announced this on December 18 at the final press conference.
According to him, today 3 strategies for the development of the sector have been developed: for the development of high-tech industry, digitalization and the military-industrial complex of Armenia for 2020- 2025. The document has already been put into circulation and submitted to the public. As the minister pointed out, in 2019, the department increased the financing of the military-industrial complex by AMD 984 million to develop new projects at the expense of the money saved. The funds, as Arshakyan emphasized, were allocated about 2 months ago and have already been disbursed. "Sector allocations in 2020 will double," the head of the department said.
According to him, if earlier the financing of the sector was carried out mainly from the point of view of carrying out research and experimental design work, then from 2020 capital investments will also be drawn into the sector.
Earlier, ArmInfo reported that in order to turn Armenia into a high-tech military-industrial country of manufacture and exporter, the state budget in 2020 provides for the Ministry to allocate about 12.5 billion drams. So, on November 15, Minister of High Technology Industry Hakob Arshakyan stated from the rostrum of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia that in 2020, 12.5 billion drams will be allocated from Armenia's state budget to implement projects in the military-industrial complex, high-tech and information technologies and digitalization of the country. At the same time, expenditures on the development of the military-industrial complex will increase by 122%, amounting to 6.3 billion drams, some of which will be used to conduct scientific, technical and design studies, and the other - to develop production capabilities taking into account the needs of the defense department and access to finished products international markets.
As Arshakyan noted, with the participation of interested parties, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Dispute of the Republic of Armenia developed a program aimed at providing "university- production" communication, which will enable companies to conduct retraining of personnel within the higher educational institutions. In 2020, it is planned to retrain about 6 thousand specialists, three thousand of whom are in Yerevan, the rest in the regions. The state will direct about 200 million drams for these purposes. It is also envisaged to provide 90 grants for startups for their formation and access to international markets. The volume of state financing of these startups next year will be about 1 billion drams. For its part, the ministry, according to its head, also launched an initiative according to which at least 20 start-ups will receive additional grants, which will make investments in the country's regions, thereby contributing to the proportional development of the regions.
In order to promote exports, the government plans to internationalize goods and services. 425 mln drams will be allocated for these purposes. In 2020, as part of the country's digitalization, it is planned to create a single information platform, which will be the result of work done in 2019 to collect data from all ministries and departments. The creation of the platform will allow to establish common functions of standardization, and, accordingly, will facilitate the access of goods and services to international markets. It is planned to direct 450 million drams to the solution of the task by the state budget project.
Next year, the state will take steps to improve the infrastructure of communications and telecommunications, which will be allocated 1 billion drams. This program will become consistent until 2024, with its implementation 5 billion drams of budget resources will be used. In addition, in early 2020, active work will begin on the construction of an engineering city in Yerevan. This project is implemented on the basis of public-private partnership. It is envisaged that 35 companies will be deployed in the engineering city, which will create 1,500 new jobs.