On June 13, the First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Investments of the Republic of Armenia Garegin Melkonyan received the Head of Eurasia Division of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) William Tompson and the members of OECD reforms monitoring working group.

Issues on the process, achievements and further steps of the program “Supporting SME competitiveness in Eastern Partnership countries: Armenia” has been discussed during the meeting. On the same day, the session of the OECD reforms monitoring working groups took place.

The session was Co-Chaired by the First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Investments of the Republic of Armenia Garegin Melkonyan and the Head of Eurasia Division of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) William Tompson.

Greeting the guests, Garegin Melkonyan mentioned, “Cooperation of Armenia with OECD has launched 2 years ago. The Armenian project of the OECD seeks to improve the competitiveness of key sectors of the Armenian economy, with a particular focus on Small and Medium Enterprises development, internationalization and export development, investment attraction, creation of relations between transnational corporations and Armenian SMEs, creation of a roadmap for steps to be taken, aiming at improving the mentioned directions and providing opportunities for further sustainable development.”

Expressing gratitude to the participants of the meeting, Garegin Melkonyan added that planned activities had been implemented in a short time due to the cooperation with OECD and other international organizations, and at the end of this year the result of implemented activities will be presented.

Melkonyan also expressed confidence that based on the positive experience it will be possible to carry out joint activities and continue to cooperate in different areas.

The Head of OECD Eurasia Division William Tompson greeted the participants and expressed gratitude for continuous cooperation. “Both me and my partners are very impressed with the success of Armenia, particularly in export and import sector. Armenia will be at the center of attention in October and will represent its progress to other countries. Today we are here to discuss ongoing projects and further cooperation prospects with Armenia. As the project comes to its end, we will also discuss in which sector the cooperation will be continued, particularly SME development, export and import promotion,” said William Tompson.

During the session the draft report based on the monitoring of the reforms of the activity implemented by OECD has been represented. The report will officially be represented during the OECD Eurasia Competitiveness Roundtable in October, 2017.