SERZH SARGSYAN: WITH CONSTRUCTION OF NEW NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, SECURITY QUALITY OF OUR COUNTRY WILL CHANGE
Noyan Tapan
Se p 23, 2008
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 23, NOYAN TAPAN. "It would be incomprehensible
for our people if the Armenian-Russian strategic relations did not
transform into other relations, and it would be incomperehensible for
us as well," Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan stated at the September
23 meeting with the members of the ArmRusgazprom CJSC Board. In his
words, the signing of the 2009-2015 agreement on natural gas supply
completely fits into the logic of Sargsyan-Medvedev negotiations.
He said that the tariffs to be used from April 1, 2009, will allow
Armenia to increase slightly the social load and will also provide
business with a great opportunity to become much more competitive
in the region. "Despite the size of our transport component – as
compared with others, this circumstance gives an opportunity to be
in much better conditions: to ensure quite high indices of GDP in
the visible future," the president noted.
According to him, it is necessary to find the golden mean so that
on the one hand the enterprise’s business will be successful, on
the other hand its business will not be aggravating for the economy
and population. "It is good that we have succeeded in raising the gas
supply network index from 21% to 91% over a few years, but we also have
many settlements where residents cannot use natural gas and improve
the quality of their life because it is economically unprofitable for
the enterprise to build gas supply networks in these settlements,"
the president said, adding that some opportunities of state assistance
exist in this issue, and the major goal is to construct a gas supply
network throughout Armenia in the next 2-3 years, and there will be
a possibility to finance this work both from the state budget and
other sources.
S. Sargsyan attached great importance to the highly professional
operation of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline. In his words, this work
must be done within the envisaged period so that the launching of
the pipeline will be in line with the completion of construction
of the Hrazdan Thermal Power Plant’s 5th unit and its operation –
for successful management of the economy. The Armenian president
said that the calculation of technical and economic indices of the
new nuclear power plant has begun. "We believe that we are starting
the construction of a powerful unit with a capacity of 1,000-1,200
megawatts. In my opinion, it will change the security quality of our
country," the president stated.