AZG Armenian Daily #064, 12/04/2005

Cooperation

ARMENIA-GERMANY-COUNCIL OF EUROPE

Cooperation in Urban Construction Sphere

Various officials have often touched upon the issue of the urban
construction in the capital and in the republic as a whole. There are many
problems in this sphere that are mainly caused by the fact that there is no
general layout, at present. The majority of 930 RA communities doesn’t have
this main document for urban construction.

It has been already a year that RA Urban Construction Ministry is
cooperating with the German Transport and Construction Ministry in order to
elaborate the models of the general layouts of the dwelling places. A two
day’s conference was held within the framework of the abovementioned
cooperation, recently. The conference was entitled “National, Regional and
Local Stable Territorial Development of Armenia.”

Ruzan Alaverdian, RA deputy urban construction minister, emphasized that the
general layouts of 12 communities were submitted for the competition
announced within the framework of the conference. Iris Gleicke,
parliamentary state secretary of German Transport and Construction Ministry,
said that each of the layouts deserved a prize, but it’s impossible to award
prizes to everyone. She added that the German government is glad to help
Armenia in its integration to Europe, as well as in its determination to use
the contemporary norms of urban construction and stable territorial
development.

The German side will allocate 100 000 Euros to achieve these goals. It’s
worth mentioning that the cooperation is carried out within the framework of
the European ministerial conference of regional-territorial planning of 45
CE member countries.

Aram Harutyunian, RA urban construction minister, informed that, as a
probation project, they are going to restore the historical exterior of one
street in Goris, Martouni and Ashtarak towns.

By the way, the program includes preservation and reconstruction of
historical-cultural buildings and monuments. This last factor is extremely
actual today.

By Nana Petrosian