About $2 million will be spent on building exposition center as part of first free economic zone in Armenia

YEREVAN, February 7, /ARKA/. . About $2 million will be spent on building an exposition center as part of the first free economic zone in Armenia, Arsen Taroyan, head of Yerevan Research Institute of Computing Machines, said at a news conference today.

On February 2 the Armenian government approved a project designed to create free economic zones in the territory of Mars plant in Yerevan and at Yerevan Scientific Research Institute of Computing Machines. It approved also an application from Russian company Sitronics to manage the free economic zones.

According to economy minister Tigran Dvatian, it will take Sitronics six months to prepare the project for commissioning. He said first stage investments are expected to be about $10 million. Sitronics will establish free economic zones on approximately 100 thousand square meters of space and will house companies specializing in high technology. Six foreign companies expressed interest in free economic zones.

Arsen Taroyan said the first and second floors will house the exposition and the third and fourth floors will be designed fro presentations, seminars and conferences, he said.

JSC Sitronics is one of the largest high-tech companies in Russia, CIS and Europe, specializing in telecommunications, information technology and microelectronics. It is an affiliate of JSFC Sistema — the largest diversified public financial corporation in Russia and CIS, serving more than 100 mln consumers. Sitronics is listed on the London Stock Exchange since February 2007, and its shares are also traded on RTS.-0-