Samvel Karapetyan pledges 300,000 new jobs in five-step economic plan

Businessman and philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan, who is currently under house arrest, has unveiled a five-step economic plan that would create 300,000 new jobs across Armenia and help reverse decades of economic decline and emigration.

Speaking at the launch of Karapetyan’s economic program on Tuesday, his nephew Narek Karapetyan, coordinator of the Mer Dzevov (Our Way) movement, said Armenia, marking 35 years of independence, remains among the world’s 110 poorest countries and is in urgent need of large-scale reforms.

“For years, reforms in Armenia have been driven first by a security agenda and later by an agenda of internal confrontation,” Narek Karapetyan said. “Meanwhile, a less visible but critical problem has persisted – the weakening of Armenia, where people are leaving the regions and emigrating abroad.”

Armenia’s population has fallen by around 500,000 since independence, he said, adding Yerevan residents migrate mainly to the United States, while people from rural regions move largely to Russia in search of work.

The centerpiece of Samvel Karapetyan’s plan is the creation of 300,000 jobs nationwide, with a focus on addressing unemployment in the regions, where a lack of work has fueled emigration and social problems.

“The core issue in the regions is jobs. There is no work, and people are forced to leave the country, often separating families,” Narek Karapetyan said. “State policies so far have relied heavily on subsidies, while production and industry in the regions have declined.”

He criticized what he described as an economy in Yerevan driven largely by credit-fueled growth, warning that such a model is unsustainable in the long term.

According to him, the proposed economic strategy is based on reindustrialization, the development of export-oriented services and policies designed from the perspective of entrepreneurs and citizens rather than the state bureaucracy.

The presentation is set to continue with a detailed outline of the remaining steps of the program, followed by a panel discussion and a question-and-answer session involving economists and other professionals.