YEREVAN, OCTOBER 1, NOYAN TAPAN. Favorable conditions have been created for the development of the IT sector in Armenia, but four problems: the quality of Internet connection, the absence of business structures, the refunding of excess payments to exporters and the quality of higher education - should be solved to develop the sector's potential, the Vice President for Strategic Market Development of Synopsys company, CEO of the company's Armenian branch - Synopsys Armenia CJSC Rich Goldman said at the September 30 press conference. According to him, the first problem is the quality of the Internet connection. "In order to be competitive, Armenia should have a powerful Internet connection, whereas the capacities of Internet connection in the country are quite low, and Internet connection costs several hundred times as much as in other countries," Rich Goldman noted, adding that the small steps on reducing Internet prices in Armenia in the past 18 months should be replaced by a considerable reduction in these prices. In his opinion, the second obstacle to development of the IT sector in Armenia is the absence of business structures to help with IT development. He explained that after not finding any suppliers of the necessary equipment and this equipment servicing companies in Armenia, Synopsys had to order equipment abroad. The third problem is related to refunding the excess VAT payments to exporters and ensuring transparency in this process. R. Goldman said that the new government reforms legislatively this process, but those implementing the reforms cause problems, while "foreign investments are difficult to make in Armenia" without real reforms. R. Goldman expressed an opinion that the fourth obstacle to IT sector's development is the sphere of education, to which it is necessary to attract investments with the aim of updating equipment, educational programs and methods and raising the salaries of the teaching staff. The CEO of Synopsys announced that at the ArmTec Congress-2008 to be held in Yerevan on October 4-5 with the participation of members of many internationally recognized companies from Armenia and other countries, the RA prime minister's opening speech will be followed by his speech, in which he will present the four above mentioned problems.

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