The World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 report does not contain any inaccuracies regarding Armenia, Valentina Saltine, a senior specialist in the development of the private sector of the World Bank, said in a conversation with “Voice of America”, commenting on the statement of the President of the Central Bank of Armenia, Artur Javadyan, that a certain mistake was made in the ranking table of the report, which, if corrected, would place Armenia in the 37th position in the ranking table, instead of the current 47th.

“From our point of view, there is no inaccuracy or error regarding Armenia. This year, we have just slightly revised and reformulated the assessment of protection indicators for small-cap investors. We didn’t add any new elements, we just made some corrections.”

In particular, according to Saltine, in order to receive additional points for the protection of investors with a small share, the country needs to have at least 10 private companies selling voting shares in the stock market, while there are only 7 such companies in the Armenian stock market, of which only three are private.

“It’s not something the government can easily do on its own. It certainly cannot force other companies to go public. It is something that should happen naturally, and the government can create conditions for it by passing laws,” the representative of the World Bank said.

At the same time, Valentina Saltain pointed out the achievements recorded by Armenia during the past year, which are aimed at creating a favorable atmosphere for business implementation. It is the improvement of the process of obtaining the right of construction, the reforms of the tax sector and the digitization of cross-border trade declarations.

“Generally, Armenia is doing very successfully. The issues in some areas are mainly related to legislative changes and it takes time to feel the impact of these changes.”

Three of Armenia’s four immediate neighbors – Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey – are in a better position than Armenia in terms of ease of doing business, while Iran ranks 127th.

In terms of ease of doing business in 2020, the World Bank recognized New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong as leaders. The situation is worse in Venezuela, Eritrea and Somalia.