Economic News
December 14, 2007 Friday

RA Prime Minister Receives World Bank Vice-President

Yerevan. ">OREANDA-NEWS . December 14, 2007. Welcoming the guest,
Serzh Sargsyan noted that less than two months hade passed since
their Washington meeting of which he got very good impressions. Mr.
Kazu’s sufficiently favorable opinion of Armenia’s economy and those
reforms underway in our country inspired enthusiasm and strengthened
his conviction that Armenia is on the right path of development and
has all the possibilities for winding up the pace of development.
According to the Prime Minister, this implies a higher standard for
future programs to be implemented in Armenia.

The World Bank Vice-President for Europe and Central Asia reaffirmed
his opinion of our country and went on to note that Armenia has been
among those countries consistently displaying good performance over
the recent period. He said that considering the per-capita growth of
GDP in our country, there is a possibility of making a shift from the
IDA financing towards a joint IDA-IBRD financing scenario, followed
by an exclusively IBRD-financed scheme.

Shigeo Kazu advised that the World Bank was launching the preparation
of the 2008-2012 strategy of country assistance for Armenia, with the
resources to be committed implying that a focus was going to be
placed on the implementation of second- and third-generation reforms
and institutional transformations: Armenia must maintain its
competitiveness, Mr. Kazu mentioned while speaking about boosting
efficiency in public governance, ensuring higher transparency in the
work of public agencies, improving tax and customs administration,
combating corruption. According to him, competitiveness implies a
special focus upon logistics account taken of the set of challenges
facing Armenia due to the blockade. He said that more favorable
conditions should be created for the addressing of transportation
problems.

As railway is among the key mails of this chain, Mr. Kazu took the
opportunity to felicitate the Prime Minister on successful completion
of the competition process relating to Armenian Railways.

As the meeting drew to its end, Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan thanked
Mr. Kazu for his kind remarks and the willingness of support and said
to be confident that having the assistance and advice of the World
Bank, the government of Armenia would be able to solve the mentioned
problems and push forward on with the reforms.