Pashinyan, Afeyan discuss challenges facing Armenia

PanARMENIAN.Net - Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Sunday, July 18 met with Lebanese Armenian-American entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist Noubar Afeyan to discuss the challenged facing Armenia, his office reports.

Afeyan is a co-initiator of The Future Armenian movement, founder and Executive Director of Flagship Pioneering and Moderna Therapeutics, co-founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.

"We were excited to see your contribution to the fight against Covid-19, and we are pleased with the achievements you and your company have had in this area. We believe that the epidemiological situation is actually manageable at this point of time: the experience we gained has taught us a lot. We are now trying to vaccinate as many of our citizens as possible," Pashinyan told Afeyan. "We are also vaccinating foreigners, as a matter of fact. I hope to hear your opinion and predictions concerning the pandemic and to what extent vaccines will help tackle the problem; to what extent the situation is manageable at this stage, and what kind of challenges are waiting for us."

Afeyan agreed that that there are many problems for both the country and the nation due to the crises of the past year. "I hope we can talk about different approaches to the future, i.e. how to try to be able to make the future brighter and more effective by working together,” Afeyan noted. Pashinyan and Afeyan discussed issues related to the national agenda, the programs implemented by the Armenian government, the joint projects aimed at the country's development.