YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, NOYAN TAPAN. The total revenues of the companies operating in the system of the RA ministry of transport and communication made 3 bln 428 mln drams in 2008 declining by 4.6% on 2007. This decline was conditioned by the fact that Armenian railway was in the process of liquidation and stopped its work on July 1, 2008. Last year 2,768.9 thousand tons of cargo was transported by railway (7.2% fall as compared with 2007). According to the report submitted to the Armenian prime minister on January 30, road construction and maintenance work of 19 bln 640.8 mln drams on road sections of the total length of 251 km was done in 2008. The minister Gurgen Sargsyan said that the sector's programs were fully implemented. However, some shortcomings, especially in road construction, were registered. In his words, because of problems related to co-financing and approval of contracts of the road rehabilitation program implemented by the Asian Development Bank, the reconstruction of rural roads began 2 months later than envisaged. This work will continue and finish in 2009-2010. The problem of taxi services in connection with the amendments to the Law on State Duty was also mentioned as a shortcoming of the transport sector. According to the minister, although the state duty for private taxi drivers was reduced from 200 to 25 thousand drams (about 80.5 USD), some problems have not been completely solved yet. The deputy head of the RA State Revenue Committee Armen Alaverdian proposed that he together with the minister should struggle against taxis with white number plates. "The number of taxis without yellow number plates is great in Yerevan, but it does not mean that they have not been registeted," he noted. G. Sargsyan announced that about 100 taxi service providers and 35 private taxi drivers have been licensed in the last 2 months, another 80 are in the licensing process.

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