COVID-19 Daily Briefing (April 9)

12 p.m.

During a press conference, Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan said the government currently has ten economic and social assistance packages, six of which are already in their full implementation phase. Grigoryan said they are working to finalize the seventh, eighth and ninth packages. The tenth package, offering assistance to small businesses, was just ratified today. Grigoryan said he is certain the package will enter its implementation phase very soon because the eligible beneficiaries are easily identifiable. Grigoryan said the seventh package will enter its implementation stage tomorrow, the eight and ninth packages starting Monday.

Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Zaruhi Batoyan said the beneficiaries of the fourth and sixth programs already have access to the funding. Batoyan said citizens need to visit the ssa.am website, enter their data and find out if they can be beneficiaries of these programs. If confirmed, the website will also indicate which bank they can go to with an ID card and receive the one-time financial assistance. The beneficiaries of the seventh program can start receiving the assistance starting tomorrow. Around 3,750 pregnant women will be able to receive the one-time monetary state assistance as a start to the program. Batoyan said the list of the beneficiaries is constantly being updated, the ministry has received around 15,000 applications by pregnant women but the data still needs to be compared with the database at the State Population Registry and other databases before determining who can be considered a beneficiary. For the eighth and the ninth programs, the beneficiaries will be identified based on an application process.

Minister of Economy Tigran Khachatryan said that, to date, as part of the first assistance package, loans for the amount of 1.43 billion AMD have been approved, of which 520 million AMD has already been made available to the beneficiaries. As part of the second assistance package, loans in the amount of 1.1 billion AMD have been approved, 600 million AMD has already been made available to the beneficiaries. As part of the third package, the Ministry already has 27 applications, which it is currently considering.

11 a.m.

During today’s Government session, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that some of the nine social and economic assistance programs initiated by the Government are in the implementation phase. So far, 3.67 billion AMD has been allocated for the implementation of the assistance programs, which according to Pashinayn is less than 10 percent of the resources that the state anticipates using. Pashinyan also noted that the government has already launched the webpage where citizens can learn more about the assistance programs and see if they are eligible. The webpage is being updated on a daily basis and will be fully finalized at the beginning of next week.

PM Pashinyan also said that, as of today, Armenian banks have granted loan repayment holidays to 290,000 citizens of Armenia in the amount of 9.3 billion AMD. Additionally, repayment holidays were also granted to 5,300 corporations in the amount of 15.4 billion AMD. Pashinyan noted that these decisions were made without any pressure from the government, which is an indication that the banking sector trusts the government and its assistance programs. He went on to say that the foreign exchange market and the banking system in general are in stable condition. There is also a growing trend of bank deposits. During the past several days, there were registered cases when deposits in dollars were replaced by deposits in AMD.

Speaking about the government’s response to COVID-19, the PM noted that his administration has a clear strategy on how to overcome this crisis and that the pandemic has not changed much in the government’s strategic vision of the country’s economic development. Speaking of the current COVID-19 situation in Armenia, Pashinyan said that 236 people were tested yesterday, with 28 testing positive, which means that Armenia continues to maintain the “cautious optimism” from earlier in the week. Pashinyan said that, during tomorrow’s session of the Special Commission, they will discuss which restrictions will still be necessary after Monday. Starting from tomorrow, the government will also increase its testing capacity; all medical workers and people with pneumonia or any other viruses will be tested for COVID-19.

Speaking about the number of confirmed cases, Pashinyan clarified that, since the outbreak of the pandemic, 12 confirmed cases were not included in the statistical data, and that today the number of cumulative confirmed cases stands at 921.

During the session, Davit Ananyan, Chair of the State Revenue Committee, presented the tenth assistance program introduced and adopted by the government. The beneficiaries of this program are all those citizens, who after January 1, 2020, are owners of micro-enterprises or small businesses. The program, however, is targeted specifically at three groups of micro-businesses:
1) Those who were owners of a family business in 2019;

2) Those who were not registered as individual entrepreneurs in 2019;

3) Those who are not owners of a family business or were not registered as sole proprietors in 2019, and applied for a micro-business license after January 1, 2020.

About 6,000 people are potential beneficiaries of the program, who will receive one time financial assistance amounting to 10 percent of revenue generated from sales of goods and provided services, between January 1 to April 1, 2020, up to a cap of double the minimum wage (136,000 AMD). Ananyan also said that one-time financial assistance in the amount of the minimum wage will be provided to those who, after January 1, 2020, are not owners of micro-businesses and are not sole proprietors, as well as those who as of April 1, 2020 have submitted a request to the Cash Register Introduction Office of the State Revenue Committee to receive a cash register but as of April 1 have not yet activated the cash register. At the same time, beneficiaries of the program are also those for whom the use of a cash register is not required and those whose request to receive a cash register has not been granted. Ananyan also clarified that beneficiaries of the program cannot be those who have two or more employees, since these people are already beneficiaries of the fifth assistance program.

Amendments were made to previously introduced assistance programs to ensure that people who are eligible for more than one program receive assistance from only one.

Gegham Gevorgyan, the Chairman of the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition, said that they continue to conduct daily monitoring at major supermarkets in Yerevan and the marzes. Gevorgyan said that the price of certain products that had increased in March has already started decreasing. The increase of product prices is between one to four percent and rapid increases have not yet been registered. Gevorgyan also said that the Committee compared the prices of certain products within the same period of time in 2018 and 2020 (sometimes the prices registered in the same supermarkets). For example, the price of one kilogram of sugar in February 2020 was 230 AMD and as of April 8 was 255 AMD. The price of sugar during the same period of 2018 was 338 AMD. Gevorgyan said that, with increased competition, the prices of certain products have decreased in general. All those who attempt to use the current state of emergency to unreasonably increase prices of certain products will be punished in accordance with the law. PM Pashinyan also urged that smaller markets outside Yerevan (not just the branches of major supermarkets) should also be monitored.