RoA Minister of Agriculture Gerasim Alaverdyan led a high ranking delegation to Syunik Marz to discuss problems in the sector confronted by local farmers and businessmen.

He stated that the government stands alongside the village farmer and assists wherever possible. Minister Alaverdyan said that the problems in Syunik are the same as in the rest of the country - refurbishing equipment depots, establishing agricultural nurseries and waging a campaign against illegal deforestation. Mr. Alaverdyan said that the ministry had already presented a project to the government allowing for the clean-up of waste materials in forested lands in border communities. There is also a program to allocate anti-hail equipment to Syunik and to reopen reprocessing enterprises. The minister stated, "Almost all the top ministry department heads are here. Make them work for you and make demands of me and them. If they fail to do a proper job, call the ministry's hot line." Minister Alaverdyan noted with a degree of regret that not one farmer had taken advantage of the zero-interest loans being offered by the government. "The 100 million drams allocated by the government last year hasn't been touched. Not one dram has been lent out for any program," he stated, adding that people suffered from a lack of proper information. He adamantly denied allegations posed by reporters that credit terms were out of the reach of the average citizen.