Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today held a consultation on road construction programs.

Opening the meeting, the Prime Minister said: “We have come together to discuss the current situation in the field of road construction and what to do next. We have news about the North-South road corridor, we made announcements for next year, and we need to reassess what we have this year. We agreed that low-quality work will not be accepted, and all road construction companies should be aware of this in advance. We have long said that this should be ruled out, that is, there can be no compromise on quality standards.”

Bagrat Badalyan, Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, made a presentation on the programs of the interstate, republican and local road network: the recovery program under the state budget, the medium recovery program under the state budget, the World Bank's Vital Significant Road Improvement Program, M6 - reconstruction program Vanadzor-Alaverdi-Georgia Interstate Road, project for the construction of a bridge at a checkpoint Bagratashen on the progress of the investment plan for the North-South corridor.

According to him, last year, as part of the state budget planning for 2019, 164 km of road construction was planned for a total of 33.9 billion drams.

Today, 12.9 billion drams have been used, work on all 310 km is going on in all directions. The contracts signed during this year included 400 km, of which at least 330 km will be completed this year, the rest will be carried over to next year, that is, the next year will begin with construction contracts of about 70 km.

27 contractors are participating in the project, and the total value of contracts for 3 major repairs, secondary repairs and road construction projects is 29.5 billion drams, of which 5.4 billion drams were saved. This year, many contractors have acquired and continue to acquire new equipment, as well as a large amount of asphalt concrete used in the mining industry, which generally contributes to improving the quality of roads.

The Deputy Minister noted that weather conditions and balances are comparable, and projected volumes will be reached by the end of the year. Information was also provided on road construction work carried out as part of subsidy programs.

The Prime Minister reported on the North-South road corridor program. It was noted that construction work is underway on Tranche 3 - Talin-Lanjik and Lanjik-Gyumri, and work is already underway on sections of the Tranche 4 (Artashat-Agarak) and Tranche roads 5 (bypass road Gyumri and Gyumri-Bavra).

The meeting next discussed issues related to road construction and planned activities in 2020, further activities under the North-South Road Corridor Program, as well as the quality standards, the size of building plots, and building capacity in the given sector.