Month: February 2020

Armenia’s top 1000 taxpayers pay by 13% more taxes

Emil Lazarian

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 20:21, 29 January, 2020

YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, ARMENPRESS. The taxes paid by the top 1000 taxpayers of Armenia in 2019 amounted to 1 trillion and 61 billion AMD, which is a rise of 122 billion AMD (13%) against 2018, ARMENPRESS reports PM Pashinyan wrote on his Facebook page.

According to the PM, the increase of the taxes paid in 2019 against 2017 is 254 billion AMD or 31%.

In 2019 the top 10 taxpayers paid 257 billion AMD taxes, which is an increase of 23 billion (10%) against 2018.

191 companies paid over 1 billion taxes in 2019, while this number was 166 in 2018 and 141 in 2017.

361 companies paid over 500 million AMD taxes in 2019, while this number was 320 in 2018 and 285 in 2017.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan

Armenia discusses evacuation option of citizens from China

David Nargizian

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 21:22, 29 January, 2020

YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Avet Adonts held a meeting on January 29 with Ambassador of China to Armenia Tian Erlong to discuss the coronavirus outbreak in China.

Ambassador Erlong underscored China’s readiness to continue closely cooperating with Armenia in the direction of solving the various problems associated with the coronavirus spread, the foreign ministry said.

During the meeting the sides comprehensively addressed the problems faced by Armenian citizens who are currently in China’s Hubei province – the epicenter of the outbreak – and the steps to address these problems.

Deputy FM Adonts said that the Armenian Embassy in China is in constant contact with the nearly 400 Armenian citizens who are currently living in different provinces in China and who are registered at the embassy, 7 of whom are currently in Hubei.

The Armenian Embassy is also taking all possible measures in the direction of responding to the Armenian nationals’ questions and problems.

Adonts added that the Armenian foreign ministry and the Armenian Embassy in China are maintaining continuous contact with the Chinese authorities and other partner countries and their embassies regarding the issue of evacuating the Armenian nationals.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan




Tigran Sargsyan to work in EDB after leaving office in Eurasian Economic Commission

Ekmekjian Janet

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 19:38, 29 January, 2020

YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, ARMENPRESS. Board chairman of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC)Tigran Sargsyan, who is due to leave the office on January 31, will head the Digital Initiatives Foundation of the Eurasian Development Bank, ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the EEC.

“Tigran Sargsyan will preserve the status of high-level international official. The goal of the foundation is to assist the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union and Tajikistan to digitalize their economies. Those countries are members to the Eurasian Development Bank, the goal of which is to assist their economic development and expansion of trade and economic relations between them”, a press service official said.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan

HSBC considering exit from Armenia, Greece, Oman, Turkey – Reuters

Antranik Varosian

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 20:51, 29 January, 2020

YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, ARMENPRESS. HSBC is considering selling its Turkey business amid concerns about the country’s volatile currency and economic outlook, ARMENPRESS reports sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

As part of broader cost-cutting measures under interim Chief Executive Noel Quinn, the bank is also seeking to sell or shrink its business in some other markets, the sources said.

These include countries where it has small-scale operations that struggle to compete with local players, including Armenia, Greece and Oman, they said.

A spokeswoman for HSBC declined to comment.

HSBC will seek to sell its banking business in Turkey if it can find a local buyer, the sources said, adding that no final decision has yet been taken.

The bank’s retreat from Turkey, where it has operated since 1990, would be one of the biggest exits from a country it has made in recent years as it shrinks its once globe-spanning empire.

HSBC has already shrunk its presence from some 315 branches and around 6,000 staff in 2013 to around 80 branches and 2,000 staff as of September last year, according to data from the Banks Association of Turkey.

Turkey has been a problem country for HSBC in recent years as volatility in the lira and economic problems have hit its returns, with the bank flagging rising expected loan losses there in its 2018 annual report.

A currency crisis in 2018 cut the lira’s value by nearly 30%, brought on a brief but sharp recession, and prompted Ankara to clamp down on the financial sector with a series of new rules aimed at stabilizing the currency and kick-starting economic growth.

The lender previously attempted to sell its business in Turkey in 2015, Reuters reported at the time, with Dutch lender ING among the interested parties.

But the sale never went through, and the lender instead pursued branch closures and job cuts that saw it swing from a loss in 2014 and 2015 to a profit of 456 million lira ($77.02 million) in the first nine months of 2019.

Despite that improved performance, the risks from currency volatility and the economic situation mean HSBC still wants to exit, the sources said.

Interim CEO Quinn is expected to announce his cost-cutting measures when the bank reports annual results and its new strategy on Feb. 18.

Quinn is auditioning for the full-time CEO role under chairman Mark Tucker. He is tipped by insiders at the bank to get the job, although it could yet go to a surprise external candidate.

The bank is also shedding around 100 roles in its equities business as it scales back in continental Europe, Reuters reported earlier this month.

Meeting between Armenian, Azerbaijani FMs over in Geneva

Emil Lazarian

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 22:01, 29 January, 2020

YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, ARMENPRESS. The Geneva meeting between the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and  Elmar Mammadyarov is over, the spokesperson of the MFA Armenia Anna Naghdalyan told ARMENPRESS, adding that it will continue on January 30.

“A press release will be issued based on the resultsof the meeting. We have already mentioned that a broad scope of issues referring to the peaceful settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict is on the agenda of the meeting”, she said.

Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan




Chinese coronavirus death toll reaches 170

Baghdasarian Karlen

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 09:44, 30 January, 2020

YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China has hit 7711, and the death toll rose to 170, Chinese healthcare authorities said.

On January 29 alone 1737 new cases of the novel coronavirus were confirmed and 38 people died from the disease.

According to Reuters, 162 of the fatalities occurred in Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak.

On January 30, the number of suspected cases reached 12167.

At least 88693 people have had close contact with the infected patients. 81947 of them are currently under medical supervision.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan




US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dispatches experts to China to contain coronavirus

Elizabeth Jabejian

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 10:22, 30 January, 2020

YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is dispatching its experts to China to help contain the novel coronavirus outbreak, President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters on Wednesday.

“We are sending our best experts from CDC to help them”, he said. “The Chinese invited us to do so.”

According to latest data, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China has hit 7711, and the death toll rose to 170.

More than a dozen countries have reported confirmed cases of the virus.

All fatalities took place in China.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan




China allocates 3.96 bln USD to fight coronavirus outbreak

Garnik Tadevosian

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 10:09, 30 January, 2020

YEREVAN, JANUARY 30, ARMENPRESS. China’s financial agencies at all levels have allocated a total of 27.3 billion yuan (about $3.96 billion) to fight the outbreak of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus in the country, the Chinese Ministry of Finance said on January 30, reports TASS.

“Financial agencies at all levels actively support efforts to prevent and counter the outbreak”, the ministry said in a statement. “As of 17:00 local time [noon Moscow time] of January 29, a total of 27.3 billion yuan has already been allocated at all levels”.

According to latest reports, the number of confirmed cases of novel coronavirus in China has reached 7,711. A total of 170 people have died.

On December 31, 2019, Chinese authorities informed the World Health Organization (WHO) about an outbreak of an unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan – a large trade and industrial center in central China populated by 11 million people. On January 7, Chinese experts identified the infecting agent: coronavirus 2019-nCoV.

Apart from China, the infection was registered in 16 other countries. The WHO recognized the pneumonia outbreak in China as a national emergency but stopped short of declaring an international one.

Election of patriarch leaves Turkey’s Armenians without a voice

Chalian Meline
EurasiaNet.org
Jan 30 2020
Killian Cogan Jan 30, 2020

The election of Sahak Mashalyan in December (Armenian Public Radio)

In a bustling beauty shop in Istanbul’s traditionally Armenian neighborhood of Kurtuluş, the topic of conversation was the recent election of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Sesil, a 53-year-old beautician, paused from doing a customer’s nails to weigh in: she hadn’t bothered casting a ballot. “The patriarch is a puppet of Tayyip Erdogan,” she said with a shrug, referring to Turkey’s president. (Her name has been changed at her request.)

The Armenian Patriarch – a position established by the Ottomans in 1461 – is the top spiritual and symbolic leader of the Armenians in Turkey. That community was once an integral part of the Ottoman Empire, but following the 1915 genocide it has dwindled to about 60,000, concentrated mostly in Istanbul.

In the late Ottoman Empire, Armenians chose their patriarch relatively freely under the “millet” system of self-rule for non-Muslims. But that system was abolished in 1923, following the founding of the Turkish Republic, and since then successive Turkish governments have been able to manage the elections through a variety of interventions. 

The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople (Wikipedia)

The last patriarch, Mesrob Mutafyan, suffered from dementia and had been unable to carry out his duties for 12 years. Over that time the church was governed by a cleric appointed by the Turkish government, Aram Ateshyan. In 2017, the patriarchate held an election to elect a locum tenens, or temporary leader to organize and a vote for a replacement for Ateshyan. The winner was Karekin Bekchiyan, a Germany-based archbishop, but the governorate of Istanbul annulled the election.

Mutafyan died in March 2019, and the following month the patriarchate asked the governorate for permission to hold an election for a replacement. Finally, in the fall, the governorate approved the election for December 2019.

While in previous elections candidates born in Turkey but serving abroad had been permitted to run for patriarch, this time the Ministry of Interior introduced a new rule: candidates had to be based in Turkey. That effectively blocked 10 candidates from abroad, including Sebuh Shouldjian, a popular cleric based in Armenia, and left only two: Ateshyan and Sahak Mashalyan.

The latter won handily in a two-round election held in early December. Voting stations were set up across Istanbul and in the provinces of Hatay, Kayseri, Diyarbakir and Mardin, though turnout was reportedly low.

Many Armenians saw the residency requirement as a cynical ploy by Ankara to install its favored candidate.

“I shall not partake in the elections of the Armenian patriarchate […]. I will not consider the elected person as my patriarch. The civil servants, administrators and those who collaborated with them who tarnish our honor will go down in the dark pages of history,” Garo Paylan, a prominent ethnic Armenian opposition member of parliament, said ahead of the vote.

Nor Zartonk, an Armenian rights group, boycotted the elections and filed a complaint to overturn the results. “The state didn’t want candidates that could speak freely about the 1915 events. It wanted someone who would adopt its discourse,” Murad Mıhçı, the head of the group, told Eurasianet. “That’s why it forbade people from abroad.”

Not everyone agreed: Ara Koçunyan, the editor-in-chief of Jamanak, Turkey’s only daily still printed in the Armenian language, argued that it was the Armenians’ own lack of a unified position on how to conduct the elections that led to the authorities’ meddling in their affairs. He argued that a patriarch close to the government is best positioned to bring benefits to the community, and called objections to the election “demagoguery.”

“Why is America putting this on the agenda?”

While this controversy was brewing, another was percolating in Washington: The U.S. Congress approved a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide, sparking a furious reaction in Turkey.

Days after his election, the new patriarch told Turkish media that he regretted the U.S. resolution, and sought to differentiate Turkey’s Armenians from those in the diaspora. The comments were seen by many of Turkey’s Armenians as a needless act of sycophancy toward Ankara.

Nevertheless, many Armenians also agreed with the patriarch.

While genocide recognition is often a raison d’être for the Armenian diaspora – most of whom are the descendants of those who fled the 1915 massacres – many of the Armenians who stayed behind see it as a burden.

“The recent bill in the U.S. was passed to upset Turkey. It had nothing to do with us,” Nor Zartonk’s Mıhçı said.

“When the diaspora pushes for the recognition of the genocide in foreign parliaments, we suffer the backlash here,” said Sesil, the beautician. “Each time this debate is brought onto the international agenda, we fear for our children.”

Fifteen years ago, she said, her nephew was shot while carrying out his mandatory military service. He survived, but in 2011 another conscript, 25-year-old Sevag Balıkçı, died as the result of a similar attack. Four years earlier, an ultranationalist teenager assassinated Hrant Dink, a famous journalist and advocate of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.

A recent report from the Hrant Dink Foundation, an organization set up following Dink’s death to promote inter-cultural dialogue and tolerance, found that in 2018, Armenians were the second most common target of hate speech in Turkey, after Jews.

In the salon, a bright crescent-and-star Turkish flag is planted in a flickering Christmas tree, as if to signal the Armenians’ loyalty to the state.

“There is no question the genocide happened. My grandfather lost his entire family. He told me this story every day, like a tale,” Sesil said. “But why is America putting this on the agenda right now? It happened 100 years ago.”

 

Killian Cogan is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.

Armenia Constitutional Court judge Vahe Grigoryan missed Court session for no good reason

David Nargizian
News.am, Armenia
Jan 30 2020

18:14, 30.01.2020
                  

The Constitutional Court of Armenia held a session chaired by President of the Constitutional Court Hrayr Tovmasyan, but judge of the Constitutional Court Vahe Grigoryan didn’t attend the session for no good reason. This is reported on the Facebook page of Chief of Staff of the Constitutional Court Edgar Ghazaryan, who particularly wrote the following:

“On January 30, 2020, under the chairmanship of President of the Constitutional Court of Armenia Hrayr Tovmasyan, the Constitutional Court held a session based on the application of the Human Rights Defender to consider the compliance of certain articles of the laws on medical aid and service for the population, psychiatric assistance and the rights of children with the Constitution.

Judge of the Constitutional Court Vahe Grigoryan, who was elected by the seventh convocation of the National Assembly of Armenia, was the only judge who had an inexcusable absence.”