BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT IS UNSATISFACTORY
Story from Lragir.am News:
Published: 16:03:47 – 24/02/2012
“There is no intentional attitude towards the Diaspora investors in
Armenia. Local businessmen have the same problems”, said ARFD member
Ara Nranyan at today’s discussion of the Initiative group for the
protection of rights of Diaspora investors.
According to him, Armenia has a general economic field issue. “I am
not satisfied with the business environment. We need to improve it
to make it more attractive for foreign investors”, he said.
According to Nranyan, no one can say foreign investors are more
protected in Armenia than Diaspora Armenians. According to him, the
difference between local and foreign businessmen is that foreigners
run their business from abroad and have no connections in Armenia,
so this creates problems.
At the same time, Nranyan underlined that no large-scale investments
are made in Armenia. He added that there is almost no small and
midsize business on foreign investments in Armenia.
Member of the Heritage parliamentary group Styopa Safaryan noted
that if already non-Armenian U.S. Congressmen say that Armenia has no
favorable business environment that even Diaspora rich men don’t want
to run business here, then I think this is the result of defaming the
country by Armenians. According o Safaryan, the situation in Armenia
allows any local adventurer easily deceive the Diaspora investor.
Safaryan says that state circles and ordinary citizens see the
Diaspora Armenians as a pouch and this issue deepens because the
Diaspora investor does not understand the Armenian reality. In the
result, according to the MP, we have serious precedents here which
can badly influence on Armenia’s rating.
First deputy of the State Revenue Committee Armen Alaverdyan noted
that Diaspora Armenians have the same rights in Armenia as locals.
“Moreover, there are privileges in our legislation for Diaspora
Armenians. There are examples of successful investments by Diaspora
representatives. Issues occur when the Diaspora representatives come
out unable to protect their rights the reason of which is that they
don’t know the legislation”, says Alaverdyan. He called to distinguish
charity from investment.
From: Baghdasarian