YEREVAN—Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Thursday proposed an additional 2.5 billion drams for Armenia’s Armed Forces when he briefed the cabinet about the upcoming plan that will be proposed by him and his “My Step” alliance, which garnered more than 70 percent of the votes in Sunday’s snap parliamentary elections.

Pashinyan said one of his key priorities will be “to raise the combat readiness of the Armed Forces, and I have stated that we must be able to invest nearly $2.5 billion for the development of the Armed Forces in the next five years. In order to secure these funds, additional work is needed to garner additional funds, some of which will be allocated to improving the living condition of the servicemen.”

He also prioritized the development of Armenia’s military-industrial complex, and I linked the solution of this issue with his vision to make Armenia a technologically advanced country and the imperative to develop the engineering and technical capabilities of the country.

Saying that parliamentary elections have given his alliance a mandate to govern the country for the next five years and as such some of the programs that his government has implemented must be enhanced.

Pashinyan spoke about the promotion of investments within the context of what he called the “economic revolution.”

“We should acknowledge that there is a great interest in investing in Armenia which will continue growing in the future. I want to draw the attention of all public officials in Armenia and task them to create the necessary conditions and not to create any barrier for investments. I hope I will not receive any signal that there are some obstacles for any program,” said Pashinyan who added that investment processes must be simplified to avoid artificial obstacles.

He also spoke about large-scale reforms in the healthcare and education systems in Armenia, saying that the two must compete within international standards.

Pashinyan also emphasized the need to improve the citizens’ socio-economic conditions and proposed to improve and increase the effectiveness of Armenia’s public administration system.

“The challenge [facing the government] is to eliminate extreme poverty in Armenia and significantly reduce the poverty rate. We have the mandate of the citizens and must be able to solve these issues first of all by the promotion of work and creation of necessary conditions for this work,” said Pashinyan.