Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, December 13 that he prioritizes the enhancement of capabilities of the Armenian Armed Forces, maintaining that additional $2.5 billion is necessary to this end.

“We have said that we must be able to invest $2.5 billion into the development of the army in five years,” said Pashinyan, whose party won a landslide victory in the December 9 snap parliamentary elections.

“We need to make serious effort to find the additional resources.”

The acting PM also weighed in on the necessity to modernize the country’s military-industrial complex, the solution of which, he said, is connected with the government’s vision of turning Armenia into a technological and engineering country.

Under the budget for 2019, AMD 307 billion (more than $625 million) will be allocated to the Defense Ministry. From this sum, AMD 300.5 billion will be spent on military defense measures. The defense budget of 2018 had grown 17.6% against the previous year.