Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s congratulatory message on the occasion of the New Year and Christmas holidays.-
«Dear people,
Dear compatriots,
Here 2022 is passing, and in a few minutes 2023 will knock on our door, opening a new time in the life of each of us and of our country.
This is why we love the New Year: it is a cosmic and psychological threshold, beyond which we hope to leave all our failures, all our mistakes and losses, and to see our dreams realized.
This childlike perception of the New Year, by and large, accompanies a person throughout life, up to the point when one understands that a dream can otherwise be called a strategy, and the fulfillment of the dream — a plan of measures, a task that is exclusively yours, and on the path to the realization of that dream you must rely on yourself, only on yourself, and therefore your dream and your task must be concrete, extremely concrete, measurable and achievable.
This is perhaps what our great one, Yeghishe Charents, had in mind when writing the novel «Land of Nairi», which is a little-read and little-understood message among us, and today we perhaps bear the heavy consequences of reading it little and, moreover, understanding it even less. Even less understood is the public activity of the summit of Armenian thought and spirit — Hovhannes Tumanyan, the forgetting of which has deformed our conception of national and state interest.
I want to declare 2023 the year of reading the strategic works of Charents and Tumanyan, as a key message and strategy for the establishment of the state, as a prescription for reconciling with ourselves, as a means of formulating our dreams as strategy and perceiving strategy as a dream. As a tool for understanding what is happening to us these days. And what is happening is the following: we are struggling to have an independent, sovereign, prosperous and secure state, concretely — a state. We are in a biblical exodus and are walking through the desert, driven from the Land of Nairi toward the Republic of Armenia, which has a very concrete form and size of 29,800 square kilometers. This is a difficult and dangerous, but also inevitable journey — for the sake of salvation, for the sake of the republic, for the sake of statehood.
The formula for solving the extremely pragmatic problem of having a sovereign, strong and secure state is one: we must be able to change the quality of our relations in our region, first of all — in our region, an extremely complex political, historical and socio-psychological task, in an environment where we are very often threatened, very often wounded and very often killed.
But today’s conversation is about our own task and not that of others, and the formula of the task is one: to love the homeland according to Charents and according to Tumanyan. This means loving the Republic of Armenia as a homeland, and placing that at the foundation of all actions, all dreams, all strategies.
Dear people,
Dear compatriots,
2022 was a year of heavy challenges. The illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor has put our sisters and brothers of Mountainous Karabakh, all of us, in a difficult situation. I have already spoken many times about the political assessment of this situation and possible solutions. At this moment I want to firmly embrace our sisters and brothers who find themselves under blockade and tell them that they are the important addressees of the message of changing the quality of relations in the region, and this is an exceptional time for reflection for all of us.
The aggression against the sovereign territory of Armenia from May 2021 to September 13, 2022 was doubly painful, because our allies in the security sphere left us alone, preferring to remain in the status of a passive observer or, as an alternative, offering the status of an active observer.
But we did not remain alone in the world, and I want to express gratitude to those countries and international organizations that did not remain indifferent to this situation and, having no obligation toward our country, went to unprecedented decisions to support the establishment of security and stability in our region.
And most importantly — today I kneel before all our martyrs, their parents and family members, before their children, and my message is dedicated first of all to them, who are the strongest symbol of the future of the Republic of Armenia, because they sacrificed themselves so that Armenia may live, they fell so that Armenia may rise.
This is the reason, precisely this is the reason, that our response to world and regional storms, to ever-new security challenges, is asymmetric. The more the challenges grow, the more we focus on the agenda of institutional, socio-economic, political, democratic reforms and development, because that path alone will increase our today’s resilience and ensure tomorrow’s prosperity.
In this sense, 2022 was a year of exceptional achievements. Armenia found itself in the 11th position of the world ranking of economic freedom, receiving international recognition as a leading country in investment and economic freedom. This happened as a result of the fact that, despite all difficulties, the government remained faithful to the practice of implementing systemic reforms.
As a result, we are closing the year with double-digit economic growth, which in a global crisis year is exceptional on a world scale and, as in 2019, will raise the international visibility of the Republic of Armenia.
The number of registered jobs in Armenia exceeded 700 thousand — again an unprecedented result in the history of the Third Republic. Thus, we can record that since the victory of the 2018 Popular, Velvet, non-violent revolution, about 153 thousand new jobs have been created in Armenia. It is important to record that compared to November of last year, in November of this year the average salary of one employee has increased by about 45 thousand drams or 20 percent, which means that the fears that Armenia would face a social crisis in conditions of global inflation have not materialized.
On the contrary — there is a construction boom in the Republic of Armenia, a housing construction boom. Tens of thousands of families are acquiring apartments in newly built buildings, including with government support. In 2022, we returned 36.5 billion drams to families acquiring apartments in terms of income tax, in addition to the 22.7 billion drams of the previous year.
In addition to this, thousands of young families have benefited from mortgage loan support programs in the event of the birth of a child; in 2022, the volume of support under this program reached 2.1 billion drams. More than 10 thousand third and each subsequent child receive monthly support of 50 thousand drams from the state, more than 10 thousand children.
I must emphasize our program to build 300 schools and 500 kindergartens, which has started and is gaining momentum. During 2022, we already put into operation 24 renovated, reconstructed or newly built schools and 46 kindergartens. Programs for the construction, reconstruction or major renovation of hundreds of new schools and kindergartens are underway. This is an inseparable part of the institutional reforms taking place in the country, which have not only educational, administrative, security, but also deep historical and socio-psychological context.
Important are the large-scale reforms we are implementing in the police system, the most visible result of which is the introduction of Patrol Police in Armenia according to new standards.
Of key importance are the deep and comprehensive reforms that have started in the army. The formation of an army based on a literate, patriotic, professional soldier and officer meeting modern requirements and conditions has begun, which must be accompanied by at least a doubling of military salaries, a system of social guarantees for servicemen and their families, new armament and equipment. But we do not need such an army for war, but for peace, to protect our sovereignty and territorial integrity. We do not cast our eyes on another’s land, and we expect that others will not cast their eyes on our land either, and with this formula we are ready to go to peace.
I also consider important the large-scale events we held in Armenia in 2022: the European Boxing Championship, the Junior Eurovision, the Starmus international festival, the World Biology Olympiad for schoolchildren. These are events through which we appear to the world anew, and the world gets to know Armenia anew.
Dear people,
My dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,
We are accomplishing all this first of all thanks to the unprecedented growth of tax revenues of the state budget. The tax revenues of the 2022 state budget amounted to 1 trillion 925 billion drams, which is more than the same indicator of 2018 by 670 billion drams, or 53 percent, or one and a half billion dollars. But this indicator is first of all thanks to working, value-creating people, the taxpayers of the Republic of Armenia, and I want to thank them for not considering the taxes paid to the state budget a financial loss, but an investment in their state, in their future and the future of their children.
It is with these funds that in 2022 we repaired more than 500 kilometers of roads, we started the process of doubling teachers’ salaries, for the first time in the history of the Third Republic we launched a satellite into space, we are acquiring new buses and trolleybuses for the capital, we raised the minimum wage, in accordance with our promise we founded an airline, we raised the salaries of scientists, we increased the financing of science by 150 percent compared to 2018, from September 2022 we raised and from July 2023 we will again raise pensions. Moreover, with the cashback system in the case of non-cash trade, as of today we have returned about 527 million drams to pensioners and beneficiaries, and I want to express special gratitude to those banks that participate in the program on an equal footing with the government.
It is at the expense of those additional budgetary funds that in 2022 we served 786 thousand cases of health care services under state order, which is more than double compared to 2017, more by 437 thousand cases or 125 percent.
And why are we doing all this? For one reason, only and solely one reason, because we love you, we love our country. I love you all, I love our country, our state, and where I err and stumble, where I fail — perhaps because of a love that is exaggerated, perhaps overshadowing prudence. But love, in the end, is more and is the most powerful, and we will be able to bring our ship found in a stormy ocean — the Republic of Armenia — to a peaceful harbor.
And therefore —
Long live freedom,
Long live the Republic of Armenia,
Long live our children, who will live in a free and happy Armenia:
Happy New Year and Holy Christmas:
