On February 24, 2021 the RA Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan visited the Institute of Economics after Mikael Kotanyan of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia. The Minister together with the Director of the Institute, the Corresponding Member of the RA NAS, Doctor of Economics, Professor Vladimir Harutyunyan and the Ministry’s staff walked around the territory of the Institute with, got acquainted with the employees, then had a short talk about possible cooperation in the Director’s Office.

Then a discussion took place with the representatives of the management staff of the Institute, which was also attended by Yuri Suvaryan, Academician, Doctor of Economics, the Academician-Secretary of the Department of Armenian Studies and Social Sciences of the RA NAS.

Welcoming the meeting participants, Vladimir Harutyunyan thanked the Minister for the visit, then presented the activities of the Institute and the programs envisaged.

“I hope today’s meeting will be a new start for cooperation between the scientific community and the state authority that governs the economy. The current state of things in the Republic presupposes new approaches, especially in the sphere of economy, and I hope we will justify your expectations and together we will achieve the goals for the benefit of the Armenian economy’s development. I would also like to emphasize that despite numerous meetings with the government officials held in various formats, this is the first time the Minister personally visits the Institute of Economics, which is pleasant and binding at the same time”, he said.

Referring to the activities of the Institute, V. Harutyunyan noted that scientific topics of the Institute stemmed from the Government’s action plan, whereby the outcomes were presented to the Government and other interested bodies, as well as the scientific community. It was also mentioned that research was carried out at the request of various authorities, including the Institute’s expert opinion that was presented to the RA Ministry of Economy on 2019-2024 strategy on improvement of the business environment.

The Director noted that the Institute, founded in 1955, since the Soviet years has made significant investment and played an important role in the study of the country’s socio-economic issues and in the process of formation of human capital in line with the new principles of public administration, whereby many famous people were employed by the Institute.

Welcoming the meeting participants, Minister Kerobyan presented the purpose of the meeting and his expectations thereof․ “We are here to understand and exchange ideas on how we can cooperate and what results we can have, how we can join our efforts to quickly restore and strengthen our country’s economy, for if we want to live in this region as an independent state, we shall have strong economy, and that cannot be achieved without strong knowledge. The knowledge-based economy is simply the way with no alternative: we do not want to move forward without science, on the contrary, we are going to use the potential of the entire scientific community, develop, strengthen, and move forward together. We shall strengthen our scientific institutes, for by strengthening the science, we empower our country”, Kerobyan said.

The Minister of Economy also informed that the Ministry is developing a new economic policy, where the emphasis on knowledge and science is very vivid, adding that it would be desirable to have the Institute’s opinion and observations.

Vahan Kerobyan noted that the Ministry initiated the process of collection of requests for postgraduate studies and research from the private sector and businesses, and there is already a great deal of interest.

Noting that without being empowered by science it would be very difficult to advance in any sphere, Yuri Suvaryan welcomed the initiative of the Minister and the Ministry of organizing such a meeting, adding: “The Institute has many years of research experience, in the past it played a significant role in the field of economic policy development. Today the Institute has good specialists working in various fields, and in response to any order received from the Ministry, the Institute through scientific elaborations can present possible solutions to problems. I think the joint work can be very useful for both parties: the Institute will have the opportunity to deal with up-to-date topics, while the Ministry of Economy will make a certain contribution to the development of our country, the development of our country’s economic policy”.

The staff of the Institute delivered presentations on scientific-practical issues with reference to the vision of economic development of Armenia, presented the scientific potential and main achievements of the Institute, international cooperation, works completed and main directions of activities in 2021.

At the end of the meeting, the Minister thanked for an interesting and meaningful discussion, expressing his conviction that the connection between the scientific community and the Ministry will deepen, and achieving maximum results is possible through joint work.