Before proceeding to the agenda of today's government cabinet session, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan summarized what the government has done to date to soften the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis. Here’s an unofficial translation of what he said.

Dear Colleagues,

You know that the government has enacted nine anti-crisis measures, and these measures are already taking place. To date, 3.670 billion AMD has been distributed. I want to say that this number is less than 10% of what we planned. I mean, additions will be made along the way. The government has already published an e-window via which citizens can check whether they are beneficiaries of these social programs or not.

Many beneficiaries have not found their names, but I want to say that we update the data daily. And, of course, the database will be completed in a few days, at the beginning of next week at the latest, and all the assistance and support packages will be available to all citizens who are beneficiaries of the programs.

I would like to emphasize that as of today, the banks of the Republic of Armenia have granted credit postponements to about 290,000 citizens in the amount of 9.3 billion drams. Credit postponement was given to 5,300 legal entities in the amount of 15.4 billion drams. I hope you record the numbers.

There is every reason to believe that this process will continue. But I want to emphasize that these decisions were made by the government without any administrative influence. I consider it very important to emphasize this, because at the beginning of the crisis many partners and forces were trying to motivate us to make an administrative decision that will be forced on the banks, but we decided to go the other way. And the fact that the banking system, of course, has responded to our political urgings, is evidence that this system, which is considered one of the most sensitive, has confidence in the government's anti-crisis policy.

This is evidenced by the processes taking place in the market. After several days of tension, the foreign exchange market and the banking system in general are in a very calm state. On the contrary, there has been a growing trend in bank deposits in recent days. At the same time, there are already visible cases when citizens' dollar deposits are converted into dram deposits, which is the clearest proof that there is confidence in the government's anti-crisis policy.

In general, there are many proposals in the field today on what the government should do, and, frankly, sometimes you can get dizzy from the flood of those proposals.

 I want to emphasize that we have been, in fact, working daily for quite some time. The government has a clear strategy for overcoming the crisis.

 Taking our steps, of course, we will listen to everyone and will take into account proposals, but our steps will fit into our strategy.

At the same time, in terms of the competitiveness of our strategy, I think it is important to note that the crisis has not changed much in our strategic vision for the development of our country's economy, and our strategic priorities remain the same as before. So, we will move forward with clear steps, we will continue to take anti-crisis measures. Another anti-crisis event is on today's agenda, which we will discuss shortly.