Hovik Abrahamyan, the RA Prime Minister received Don Grentem, Microsoft Vice-President in Eastern and Central Europe on September 15. The press service of the Government told ArmInfo that the Prime Minister highly appreciated the cooperation with Microsoft Corporation expressing readiness to expand the bilateral partnership.
H. Abrahamyan emphasized that the successful activities of the IT companies are enhancing competitiveness of Armenia on the global markets. The Prime Minister appreciated the Microsoft support rendered by means of innovative center and other initiatives.
Don Grentem in turn emphasized the efficiency of cooperation with the RA Government and stressed the steps taken by the Government to develop the IT sphere.
In the course of the meeting, the parties have discussed the issues related to implementation of new projects, protection of intellectual property and combating cyber-crimes. In this regards, the Prime Minister drawn the special attention to the active cooperation of Microsoft with the RA Ministry of Defense. To note that IT is the most fst developinh area having significant potential and being one of the kea areas of the programmes of the RA government. There is a network of innovative centers of Microsoft around the globe. They are aimed at rendering the assistance to the local start-ups to start on. particularly, the Armenian innovative center of Microsoft started its operations in 2011 and afterwards having become the part of the Microsoft innovative center deployed active operations.
According to the RA National Statistics Service data during the first semi-year of 2015 IT companies provided services to the population for the amount of AMD 19.7 billion with annual increment of 14.4%. During 2014 this indicator made AMD 36.6 billion with annual increment of 7,5%.