Tuesday,
Pashinian Hails Armenia’s Growing Trade With Eurasian Union
• Sargis Harutyunyan
ARMENIA -- Eurasian Economic Commission Chairman Tigran Sarkisian (L) and the
prime ministers of Armenia, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan pose for
a photograph in Yerevan, .
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian cited Armenia’s growing trade with Russia and
other members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) on Tuesday as he hosted a
meeting of fellow heads of government from the Russian-led trade bloc.
Speaking at the meeting held in Yerevan, Pashinian also renewed his calls for
the creation of a common EEU market for natural gas and oil mostly extracted in
Russia.
“I am happy to note that there is a growth in commercial turnover with between
Armenia and the union’s [other] member states,” he said. “EEU countries’ share
in Armenia’s exports reached 28.5 percent in 2018.”
“[Armenian] exports to the union’s member states rose by 20 percent while
overall trade by 11 percent,” he added.
According to official Armenian statistics, Russia accounted for almost 97
percent of that trade, which totaled around $2 billion last year. Armenia’s
exports to Russia soared by almost 20 percent, to $666.5 million. By
comparison, Armenia’s trade with the European Union stood at $1.83 billion in
2018.
Pashinian said that further economic integration of Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia requires “the creation of common oil, gas and
other hydrocarbon markets.” He said the EU member states should step up their
efforts to put their energy cooperation on a “non-discriminatory footing.”
Pashinian made a similar point when he visited the EEU’s Moscow headquarters in
January. He was understood to imply that Russian gas should be as cheap in
Russia as it is in Armenia and other EEU members importing it.
Belarus, which is also heavily dependent on Russian gas and oil, has long been
advocating this idea.
Belarusian Prime Minister Sergei Rumas complained on Tuesday about hurdles to
greater commerce among the EEU member states, saying that they have become more
serious of late. He seemed to allude to his country’s latest energy dispute
with Russia.
Nevertheless, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev declared at the Yerevan
meeting that the EEU has proved to be a success since being set up five years
ago. He noted ongoing efforts to make it a more effective organization.
Armenian Tycoon To Remain Under Arrest
• Artak Khulian
Armenia -- Davit Ghazarian, the official owner of the Spayka company, talks to
reporters moments after being arrested in a courtroom in Yerevan, April 8, 2019.
The owner of Armenia’s largest food exporting company accused of tax evasion
warned through his lawyer of “severe consequences” for the domestic economy
after the Court of Appeals refused to release him from custody on Tuesday.
The businessman, Davit Ghazarian, was arrested three weeks ago after the State
Revenue Committee (SRC) charged that his Spayka company evaded over 7 billion
drams ($14.4 million) in taxes in 2015 and early 2016.
The accusations stem from large quantities of foodstuffs which were imported to
Armenia by another company, Greenproduct. The SRC says that Greenproduct is
controlled by Spayka and that the latter rigged its customs documents to pay
fewer taxes from those imports.
Ghazarian has strongly denied any ownership links to Greenproduct. He said on
April 5 that the SRC moved to arrest him after he refused to pay the alleged
back taxes.
The Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s April 8 decision to allow
investigators to hold Ghazarian in pre-trial detention. It also rejected a
separate petition to free him on bail.
The tycoon’s lawyer, Arsen Sardarian, denounced the ruling as baseless. He
claimed by that keeping his client in custody the authorities want to “extort”
large amounts of money from Spayka.
“His detention could lead to severe consequences,” said Sardarian. “That is,
the company could fail to continue its operations.”
Armenia - A greenhouse belonging to the Spayka company, November 13, 2018.
Spayka is Armenia’s leading producer and exporter of agricultural products
grown at its own greenhouses or purchased from farmers in about 80 communities
across the country. The company employing about 2,000 people also owns hundreds
of heavy trucks transporting those fruits and vegetables abroad and Russia in
particular.
In a series of statements issued earlier this month, Spayka claimed that
because of Ghazarian’s arrest its mainly foreign creditors are withholding
further funding for the company. It said it may therefore not be able to buy
large quantities of agricultural produce from Armenian farmers this year.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian dismissed those warnings on April 9. He said he
is confident that the food giant will carry on with the wholesale purchases.
The SRC chief, Davit Ananian, said afterwards that the tax collection agency is
now scrutinizing Spayka’s operations in 2016-2018 and will likely impose even
heavier tax penalties on the company.
Echoing Spayka’s statements, Sardarian insisted that the charges are based on
an arbitrary “expert evaluation” cited by the SRC. The lawyer said Ghazarian
will be ready to pay up if the alleged tax evasion is proved by a more thorough
audit involving “specialists trusted by him.”
Spayka was already fined about 2.5 billion drams ($5 million) for profit tax
evasion in July last year. Ghazarian said before his arrest that he agreed to
pay the “unfounded” fine in order to have the company’s bank accounts unfrozen.
Armenia - Businessman Davit Ghazarian (C) shows Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian
around a newly built dairy factory of his Spayka company, Yerevan, March 26,
2019.
The arrest came just two weeks after the tycoon inaugurated a new cheese
factory in Yerevan built by Spayka. Pashinian was present at the opening
ceremony.
Spayka also planned to expand its greenhouses under a $100 million project that
was due to be mostly financed by the Kazakhstan-based Eurasian Development Bank
(EDB). Andrey Belyaninov, the EDB chairman, said on April 25 that the
disbursement of its $67 million loan to Spayka has been put on hold because of
Ghazarian’s arrest.
“We can’t take such a risk if we are talking about [Spayka’s] potential
bankruptcy,” Belyaninov was reported to say.
Indicted Official Insists On Innocence
• Naira Bulghadarian
• Karine Simonian
Armenia -- Davit Sanasarian speaks at a news conference in Yerevan, April 30,
2019.
Davit Sanasarian, the head of an Armenian anti-graft agency facing corruption
charges, continued to protest his innocence on Tuesday, accusing
“counterrevolutionary” forces of seeking to discredit him.
Sanasarian angrily denied media claims that the National Security Service (NSS)
has a secretly filmed video of him accepting large amounts of cash from other
officials.
“To any media outlet, any source that will present a video of me taking a bribe
I promise … to cut my hand in front of them if there is such video of bribe
taking,” he told a news conference. He described the reports about the
emergence of such footage as “disinformation that has a counterrevolutionary
basis.”
Earlier this month Sanasarian was suspended as head of the State Oversight
Service (SOS) after being indicted by the NSS as part of a criminal
investigation into alleged corruption practices within the government agency.
The NSS arrested two other senior SOS officials in late February, saying that
they attempted to cash in on government-funded supplies of medical equipment to
hospitals.
Sanasarian is accused of helping them enrich themselves and a private company
linked to them. The NSS director, Artur Vanetsian, insisted last Friday that
the accusations have been “completely substantiated by testimony given by
various persons and face-to-face interrogations.”
“I also call on [Vanetsian] not to talk about this subject,” scoffed
Sanasarian. Both he and his lawyers again rejected the charges “fabricated.”
According to the NSS, the SOS officials arbitrarily forced medical institutions
to rig rules for the choice of companies supplying expensive equipment for
hemodialysis, a treatment of kidney failure. The security service says they
wanted to make sure that a company controlled by them wins tenders for such
supplies.
The dialysis equipment tenders were until recently won by a handful of private
firms. Earlier in February, one of their owners accused Sanasarian of driving
his Frezen company out of business. Sanasarian countered that the SOS has
simply broken up Frezen’s “monopoly” on supplies to two hospitals which he said
were carried out at grossly inflated prices.
The SOS submitted what it called evidence of those financial irregularities to
prosecutors in March. The Office of the Prosecutor-General announced earlier
this week that it has launched a criminal investigation into the SOS report. It
has not charged anyone yet.
Sanasarian portrayed that announcement as a further indication that his agency
had on the contrary fought against corrupt practices.
Sanasarian, 34, is a former opposition and civic activist who had for years
accused Armenia’s former leadership of corruption. He actively participated in
last year’s “velvet revolution” which brought Nikol Pashinian to power.
Sanasarian’s supporters, among them leaders of some Western-funded
non-governmental organizations, have strongly defended him, denouncing the NSS
and Vanetsian in particular. Prime Minister Pashinian hit back at the critics
on April 20. He said that they place their personal relationships with
Sanasarian above the rule of law.
Dashnaktsutyun Slams Armenian Government
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia -- Ishkhan Saghatelian, the head of Dashnaktsutyun's governing body in
Armenia, at a news conference in Yerevan, .
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) on Tuesday strongly
criticized the current authorities’ track record but said it has no plans yet
to try to unseat them.
In a statement adopted at a congress held in Yerevan, the opposition party’s
organization in Armenia claimed that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and his
government have failed to achieve “tangible results in any area of public
life.” It accused them of lacking “strategic development programs,” pursuing an
“unpredictable foreign policy,” breaching judicial independence, and
systematically discrediting “traditional national, spiritual and cultural
values.”
“We often justify the failings and inactivity of the current authorities by
comparing them with the former ones,” said Ishkhan Saghatelian, the newly
elected head of Dashnaktsutyun’s governing body in Armenia.
“Our people gave these authorities a strong vote of confidence and have great
expectations but they are not living up to those expectations,” he told a news
conference.
Saghatelian made clear at the same time that his party does not have a “regime
change agenda” yet. He dismissed a newspaper report which claimed that
Dashnaktsutyun plans to launch an anti-government protest movement before the
end of this year.
Dashnaktsutyun was part of Armenia’s former government ousted during last
spring’s “velvet revolution.” It received two ministerial posts in Pashinian’s
first cabinet formed in May. Pashinian sacked his Dashnaktsutyun-affiliated
ministers and other government officials in October, accusing their party of
secretly collaborating with former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party
(HHK).
Dashnaktsutyun has since been increasingly critical of Pashinian’s government.
The center-left nationalist party, which remains influential in the Armenian
Diaspora, failed to win any seats in the Armenian parliament in snap general
elections held in December.
Saghatelian, who served as a regional governor from June-October 2018, said
Dashnaktsutyun is now open to cooperation with any political force, including
the HHK, which shares its concerns and views. “We don’t have a black list,” he
said.
Press Review
“Zhoghovurd” notes that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is visiting
Armenia for the first time since last spring’s “velvet revolution.” The paper
suggests given the “not so smooth” state of Russian-Armenian relations Medvedev
will discuss not only economic but also political issues in Yerevan. “Are the
current Armenian authorities considered by Russia to be as controllable and
therefore trustworthy as the former ones?” it says. “It should be noted that
there is also a lack of trust towards Russia in Armenia, especially on issues
where Russia plays a direct or passive role.” It says one of those issues is
the criminal investigation into the March 2008 violence in Yerevan and Russian
support for the arrested former President Robert Kocharian.
“Zhamanak” says one of the issues on the agenda of Medvedev’s trip is the price
of Russian natural gas supplied to Armenia. “The Armenian authorities want to
fix a long-term price of gas so that they don’t have to negotiate every year
and create tension in the economic and political life,” writes the paper. “But
the Russian side is not prepared for such an agreement and the gas prices will
continue to fluctuate in accordance with international market trends.”
“Aravot” voices misgivings about the authorities’ decision to mark the
anniversary of the “velvet revolution” with a new public holiday called
Citizen’s Day. Still, the paper notes that Armenians who celebrated the holiday
in the streets of Yerevan and other parts of the country on Saturday carried no
“negative energy” and did not utter insults directed at the former regime.
“People were simply having fun,” it says. “Just how they were having fun is
another matter.”
“Haykakan Zhamanak” claims that critics of the current government are now
saying that “corruption is not such a bad thing” after all and can be good for
state governance. The pro-government paper says this is part of their efforts
to “exonerate the former authorities.” “Controlled corruption is certainly a
system of governance and it could even have some short-term positive effects,”
it says. “But only if there is no state and statehood.”
(Anush Mkrtchian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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