The draft law on ratifying the loan agreement "Fourth State Sector Modernization Program" signed between Armenia and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development was discussed at the NA session that started today.

The total amount of the project is 26 million 500 thousand euros. The loan's repayment period is 25 years, of which the grace period is 14.5 years.

By attracting additional financial resources, it is expected to increase the efficiency of selected government services and improve their accessibility to businesses and citizens.

As Ashot Muradyan, Deputy Chairman of the SRC, informed. "The program consists of the following parts: modernization of the public administration system, provision of digital services, data management, and digital infrastructures. The program is in line with the 2021 and 2026 plans of the RA government."

According to Muradyan, to ensure the continuity of the achievements of the previous three public sector modernization programs implemented with the support of the World Bank and to modernize the public administration system with the introduction of additional innovations, the RA government considered it expedient to design and implement the 4th State Sector Modernization Program with the support of the World Bank.

The goal of the project is to support the modernization of the civil service by introducing a senior executive corps/service, to expand the digital services provided by the state, increasing their number to 350-400, to modernize the tax administration systems by ensuring the implementation of tax services in a mobile application, to introduce cyber security and related institutional mechanisms, establish a unified state data management center (in the framework of the G-Cloud cloud hybrid model.

"The amount allocated to SRC is the largest because we proposed the largest volume of projects. We have several main directions. One of the directions is the development of mobile applications in electronic services by tax and customs services. Most of the services provided in SRC, if not all, are provided on the electronic platform. Still, there are no services provided through mobile applications, which creates certain problems," said Muradyan.