Prime minister: Armenia’s IT industry shows 15-to-20-percent growth every year

YEREVAN, October 4. /ARKA/. Armenia’s IT industry shows a 15-to-20-percent growth every year, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said Friday at the sixth ArmTech international congress in Yerevan.  

He said that some 7,000 specialists work at 300 companies in Armenia.

“It is a pleasant fact that Microsoft, IBM, Synopsys and other prominent companies operate in Armenia now,” he said. “I would like to say that we enter a new stage in development of IT industry, and we should set clear tasks before ourselves.”

Sargsyan stressed in this connection that the government should create favourable environment for effective interaction of four subjects necessary for IT development – universities, research centers, venture funds and managers.

“We also ought to be within the global IT network,” the premier said. “That is why the opening of Armenia’s office in Silicon Valley in 2012 was a very important event.”

The first ArmTech congress was held in San Francisco on July 4 to 7, 2007. It was followed by similar event in Yerevan in 2008 and 2011 and in Silicon Valley in 2009 and 2012.

In 2000, Armenian government announced IT industry development as one of its top-priority objectives.
Today some 350 information and communication technology companies with their 10,000 employees operate in Armenia now.

Armenia’s Union of Information Technology Enterprises says IT industry in Armenia recorded a 25-percent year-on-year growth in 2012. Its output amounted to $250 million in 2012. ---0----