Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan’s introductory remarks at cabinet sitting

Dear colleagues,

A public opinion survey-based performance report is going to be posted at the government’s website today.

I would like to inform you that according to our citizens, recent years’ most outstanding reforms are as follows: Internet and mobile communications: 95.3% of those citizens polled find that obvious improvements have been in this area over the last five years.

Third-party risk insurance is the second area where we have tangible results. As you may remember, the government’s drive gave rise to heated discussions and criticism. Nevertheless, 82.4% of the respondents proved appreciative of the reform. And finally, the third success where we have serious achievements is the system of immovable property cadastre with 65.1% appreciation.

Dear colleagues, you can get a more detailed report on our website, which gives the per-agency breakdown of the poll so that you can see how public perception has changed.

The second issue I would like to address is the following: three years ago a legislative norm was enacted stipulating that large enterprises should conduct external audits and report back to the public on their financial position. Earlier today the Minister of Finance reported that they have summed up the results of 2012 covering data from 800 top enterprises.

Mr. Gabrielyan, I feel that we should have a consolidated report available on our website so that our citizens could get a single view of the situation. In this way, we can clearly see which enterprises do not have problems with their financial statements. There are dozens of companies with serious audit-related problems. We have even entities with negative auditor’s findings. This means that they will be moved into the risky group implying closer oversight over their activities.

Transparency in the government’s activities is crucial as it can promote transparency in mass media workings providing a better outreach environment strong with such comprehensive statistics and survey findings as media need to be more professional and competent.

I am glad that according to yesterday’s “Reporters without borders” paper, we have moved up 3 points under the media assessment index. Noteworthy is that we have improved our position by 37 points, up from the 111th to the 74th in the ranking, which is the best performance in the region. Of course, we have still a long way to go in terms of providing for increased media independence in our country, but what matters most is that there is progress.