YEREVAN. – Our biggest task is not only and not so much to prevent the spread of coronavirus, but to ensure that we do not have deaths, or the least deaths, as its result. Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said this on Facebook livestream while presenting their strategy to combat coronavirus in the country.

According to him, the government's respective decisions are divided into two directions: Prevention of the spread of coronavirus; and the economic situation.

"We have decided that we need to provide broad support to our economy and our businesses," he said, in particular. “We are already preparing the package to provide preferential loans to companies that will need support to pay salaries to their employees, carry out their tax duties, import raw materials, organize production, and make strategic investments.

Banks may not be too keen on giving extensive loans to farmers under these programs. We have decided that the government should have some involvement. For individuals who will be involved in the rural strategy programs we propose, the government will first zero the interests and finance up to 30% in the case of individuals. We expect that with these programs, all citizens with a good credit history will easily get loans."

The Prime Minister noted that assistance will also be provided to those citizens who become unemployed due to coronavirus.

As reported earlier, the number of people infected with coronavirus has reached 194 in Armenia.