Your trusted source

Armenia saw an 100% increase in mortgage loan volume in February 2019 against February 2018, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told a news conference on Tuesday.

“The mortgage loan growth stood at 145% on the sidelines of the programs implemented by our government. As of now, the country’s mortgage loan portfolio rose by 30%, which, according to experts, is a huge growth,” he said.

The prime minister stressed this would result in new job openings and hence reduction of unemployment rates.

Pashinyan says at this moment 89 investment projects worth $2.7 billion are being discussed with the government. In his words, 42 of these projects totalling to $774 million are at various phases of implementation.

“This means, the investment interests towards our country has increased,” he said.

Separately, commenting on Armenia’s plans to become a transit country for Iranian gas, the PM said the construction of a new pipeline is not on the agenda.

He explained it is not about the construction of new gas pipelines at least as long as the current projects are possible to be implemented through the existing ones. 

The PM said prior to his Iran visit, he had held phone talks with presidents of Russia and Turkmenistan and Georgia’s prime minister, briefing them on the range of issues that he intended to discuss in Iran.

“It was decided as a result of discussions that this topic should become one of the key points during the visit to Iran. The discussions continue and will continue so long as we haven’t reached a conclusion,” he said.

According to the PM, all existing cooperation opportunities both with Iran, Georgia, Russia, EU and the U.S. should be considered.

“In other words, we should have initiatives and ideas on how to develop these relations. It’s important to state that such developments are important in terms of ensuring stability and integration in our region. I am happy to note that there is an interest which is not identical. The most important thing in this process is that we are holding discussions with all our partners and are doing our best to make our agenda and actions transparent for them,” Pashinyan said.