Republican Party of Armenia

 Dear participants of the conference,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I warmly welcome participants of the RPA 2nd Economic Conference titled “Armenia-Customs Union: Opportunities and challenges”. It is a fact that economic integration substantially expands development opportunities of the countries. Our decision to join the Customs Union proceeds from realization of this fact. At the same time it is obvious that challenges arise on the way of the integration process, the overcoming of which is mainly conditioned with productivity of joint activities and high level of understanding. This conference takes place at an important phase in Armenia’s Customs Union accession process. Today, we have a clear working agenda and a roadmap for Armenia’s accession to the Customs Union that are in the process of being implemented. Active cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Commission and relevant bodies in Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus enables us to achieve significant progress on this road. Owing to this constructive cooperation, more than 70 percent of Armenia’s pre-membership commitments have already been fulfilled, and the rest are being fulfilled. The next step is the signing of the international legal document, and our country’s direct participation in the Eurasian integration processes.
It is my strong belief that today’s conference will serve a good opportunity to comprehensively review all available opportunities and challenges, to sum up all opinions and arguments, thus really contributing to the smooth implementation of the process of Armenia’s accession to the Customs Union.
I wish productive work to the participants of the conference.