Armenia yields to countries of the region as to competitive struggle in IT sphere

Yerevan/Mediamax/. Development of information technologies in Armenia and increase of its competitiveness international level does not make a transition from declarative to real stage, Director of “Economy and Values” Research Center Manuk Hergnyan stated.

Mediamax reports that, speaking at a joint news conference with Executive Director of “Synopsys Armenia” Hovik Musaelyan, Manuk Hergnyan stated that despite progress of Armenia in developing information technologies, it, nevertheless, yields to the countries of the region in competitive struggle. In the Networked Readiness Index, published by World Economic Forum for 2009-2010, Armenia occupied the 101st place among 134 countries, yielding to neighboring Azerbaijan (64th place) and Georgia (93rd place).

According to Manuk Hergnyan, the share of computer and other high tech equipment in the structure of import, which makes only 8.4% in Armenia, while in Azerbaijan this index equals 61%, also evidences the level of technologic modernization of economy.

“Despite the fact that our neighbors and other countries of the region, as opposed to Armenia, do not declare information technologies a priority sphere of economy, they make large-scale investments in IT sector”, Manuk Hergnyan stated.

Hovik Musaelyan, in his turn, stated that he does not see sufficient efforts from the part of the authorities on attracting foreign investments into IT sector. He criticized efforts of the government to elaborate a local model for developing information technologies, stating that Armenia should follow the example of Ireland and Singapore and invite large transnational IT corporations to the local market, having created all necessary conditions for that.

“Synopsys Armenia” Director stressed the necessity of large-scale tax and other privileges for the IT sector, as well as increase of affordability of credit resources for newly-established IT companies. “We have been putting this issue forward for already 10 years and have been receiving a negative answer from the government, which was motivated by reluctance of the authorities to create “hotbed conditions” for any particular sector”, Hovik Musaelyan stated.

According to him, the only result of the fact that authorities declared IT sector as a priority, was the “Enterprises Incubator Foundation”, established given assistance of the World Bank, and the project of Gyumri Industrial Park, “the future of which is not clear yet”.