‘NOT ARMENIA THAT MUST GO TO GLOBAL COMPANIES, BUT MAJOR COMPANIES MUST COME TO ARMENIA’: TIGRAN SARGSYAN SPEAKS AT ARMTECH GALA

Tert
Nov 9 2009
Armenia

ArmTech Congress ’09, the third Global Armenian High Tech Industry &
Business Conference, was held under the patronage of the Prime Minister
of the Republic of Armenia on November 5-8, 2009, in California’s
Silicon Valley.

Distinguished keynote speakers included Honorable Joe Simitian,
California State Senator (U.S.); Areg Galstyan, Deputy Minister of
Energy and Natural Resources (Republic of Armenia); Pegor Papazian,
CEO, National Competitiveness Foundation of Armenia; Daniel M.

Mahoney, President and CEO, Renesas Technology America, Inc. (U.S.);
and Gregory K. Hinckley, President of Mentor Graphics, Inc.(U.S.).

Sargsyan, speaking at the conference’s evening gala at Fairmont Hotel
San Jose, said that during his stay in Silicon Valley, it became
clear it is necessary to make changes to RA government projects in
the area of internet technology. "They grew outdated over the time we
were trying to implement them," the prime minister stated. It turns
out that we have to refresh, an opportunity which ArmTech provides.

Secondly, during our meetings with a major company an idea was proposed
that, firstly, made me astonished, that it’s not Armenia that must
go to global companies, but rather, major companies must come to
Armenia. The world is becoming very small, and global companies are
competing there. There are no longer any free places."

The prime minister emphasized the third conclusion: "The competition
among the world’s global companies is not in finding a place in the
present market, since there is no more free space. Moreover, all the
spaces in the future market too are occupied, which makes the Blue
Ocean Strategy very timely, since all those territories where we try
to position ourselves are occupied today and tomorrow. We are late:
this means we must find our ocean, our space, where we will have
our relative advantage." The prime minister considered the question
"What is Armenia’s place in the future world?" to be pivotal. "No
global company thinks [about this], other than us; they think about
their own business. And ArmTech must provide assistance in finding
the answer to the question."

In the context of the meetings and discussions held recently, Sargsyan
also referred to the Armenian world: "The Armenian world is a reality.

The rapidly changing and diminishing world showed that. It is not
the formation of the Armenian world that should interest us, since
it exists, but its future: what changes we must undergo, how we must
change the Armenian world’s traditional structures, our country."

As announced by the Republic of Armenia government, the prime minister
referred to the Armenian Genocide, Armenia-Diaspora cooperation,
and major issues related to Armenian-Turkish relations, as well
as presenting Armenia’s position and the Armenian’s president’s
initiatives directed toward the establishment of the relations.