A regular Cabinet meeting took place today, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The Government has approved the draft bill of the Republic of Armenia "On the State Budget of the Republic of Armenia for 2023". Minister of Finance Tigran Khachatryan, presenting the draft, noted that despite the existing high risks and uncertainties, economic activity in Armenia shows positive tendencies. "In the 8 months of 2022, economic activity increased by 13.9 percent, as a result of which the tax revenue plan originally defined by the state budget is being overperformed. This allows not only to fully finance the expenditure plans and measures defined in this year's budget, but also to allocate additional funds for the implementation of new security, economic and social initiatives and accelerate the implementation of program objectives defined by the Government's 2021-2026 Action Plan”.

According to the minister, as a result of financing through own incomes and borrowed funds, the total expenditures of 2023 will amount to 2 trillion 590 billion AMD or 27.8 percent of the GDP. "It will exceed the expenditures approved by the 2022 state budget by 18.3 percent. This will allow to increase the financing of projects aimed at improving economic and security infrastructures."

The Government adopted a decision to ensure the process of major repairs of roads of republican importance. As noted by Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Gnel Sanosyan, it is planned to allocate 3,061,716,000 AMD through redistribution for the major repair and construction of 4 road sections.

The Government defined the procedure for the formation and operation of the republican commission for awarding qualification category to the teachers of the general education institutions, as well as the procedure for providing extra pay to the teachers who received the category. As noted by Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Zhanna Andreasyan, by the new procedure, it is planned to link the qualification category mechanism to the teachers' professional standards. "With this, we also have the opportunity to introduce an approach for the teacher's professional career or job promotion. As a result of this, the teacher will get the opportunity, in addition to the existing systems, to receive a 10-50 percent extra pay for a period of 5 years," she said.

Referring to the decision, Nikol Pashinyan said, “We have four categories and evaluate teachers accordingly. In other words, we raise the salary significantly with certification and raise it again significantly according to the category, by 10-50 percent. In fact, we note that it is not the government that increases or does not increase the teacher's salary, but the teacher himself decides whether to increase his salary or not. We came to that decision during this process, because it also happens very often that they raise salaries once and then forget about it. We came to the conclusion that both categories and certification should be voluntary on a five-year cycle, with a higher salary standard each time. For example, after 5 years, we should create an opportunity for the teacher to earn 800,000 AMD, 1 million AMD, and so on."

According to the Head of the Government, this is a process which should be spread throughout the state administration system.