YEREVAN, November 30, /ARKA/. In his statement to the 12-th convention of the Republican Party on November 28 President Serzh Sargsyan said the most serious challenges and problems which the world was infused with two years ago when he was addressing the previous convention of the party and the measures that in my opinion Armenia had to take to meet those challenges to make Armenia a modern, democratic, and competitive state have not lost their intensity even today. “However, the last two years witnessed changes, which in addition to the already existing ones brought about new problems,’ he said.

’Certainly, first of all I mean the severe global economic and financial crisis. Not a single country was able to avoid the negative impact of the crisis.

In our country, the economic decline reached 18 per cent, something that had not be anticipated in any of our programs.

However, even in those circumstances we have been able to evade similar negative developments in the social area. Our citizens felt the impact of the crisis on their lives in a lesser degree than could have been expected judging from the macroeconomic indices,’ he said.

‘Salutations to all our entrepreneurs, major companies which accepted our appeal and cooperated with the government, acting sometimes contrary to the instincts of the classical business. Together we have been able to steer clear of much more undesirable developments.

Today, we entered the stage when negative developments are slowly but steadfastly are being reversed. We must be able not only expeditiously overcome the consequences of the crisis but emerge with a new, qualitatively different economic reality and structure,’ he said.  -0-