YEREVAN, DECEMBER 10, NOYAN TAPAN. At the December 10 sitting of the Governing Council of Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) - Armenia state nonprofit organization, the 10th allocation bid to be submitted to the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) was approved. The sitting was conducted by the Chairman of the Council, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan. The CEO of MCA-Armenia Ara Hovsepian said that by submitting this bid, the organization envisages to receive financing of 6,811,305 dollars from MCC for the first quarter (January-March) of 2009. The programmed expenditures for the indicated quarter make 7,109,153 dollars. The expenditures of the 10th allocation bid will be spent on the following components: rural road rehabilitation, improved irrigation, monitoring and evaluation, and program management and supervision. In the words of A. Hovsepian, according to the current forecast data, the cost of construction work financed at the expense of the government's allocations for the component "rural road rehabilitation" will reach 11,669,871 dollars (without VAT) at the end of the current quarter, while the sum of the program's actual and forecast expenditures for December amounts to 28,081,321 dollars. As for the work done in the reporting year, it was mentioned the repair work of 24.5-km road sections in the south-west of Armenia under the rural road rehabilitation program is being completed. At the same time, the work envisaging repairs of 273-km road sections with 60.3 mln dollars under the road construction agreements of the first package has begun. Construction of 3rd-category channels in 4 rural communities was completed under the improved irrigation program. By late 2008, the final designs of 6 main channels, 7 gravity irrigation systems and 18 pumping stations will be ready for the construction stage in all Armenian marzes, and the construction stage will begin in 2009. More than 18 thousand beneficiaries have been instructed so far on internal management and high-quality agricultural produce under the water-to-market component of the improved irrigation program. Under this program, over 130 agricultural loans of a total of 1.5 million dollars were distributed. The allocation bid will be ratified by the chairman of MCA-Armenia's Governing Council, after which it will be submitted to MCC for approval.

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