Wednesday,
Armenian Growth Rate In 2018 Reported By Government
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia - A supermarket in Yerevan.
The Armenian economy grew by 5.2 percent last year on the back of major gains
in manufacturing, trade and other services, according to official statistics
released on Wednesday.
The figure is virtually identical with a growth estimate made by the World Bank
last month. The bank also forecast that economic growth in Armenia slow down
this year before accelerating in 2020 and 2021.
Armenian growth reached 7.5 percent in 2017. It hit 9.7 percent in the first
quarter of 2018, just before the start of weeks of mass protests that led to
the resignation of the country’s longtime leader, Serzh Sarkisian.
The Armenian Statistical Committee recorded a nearly 9 percent rise in the 2018
volume of retail and wholesale trade. It said that financial and other services
were up by as much as 19 percent.
The government agency also registered a 4.3 percent increase in industrial
output mainly driven by manufacturing sectors. By contrast, the Armenian mining
industry, a key export-oriented sector, contracted by 14 percent. This seems to
have primarily resulted from the closure in early 2018 of a large copper and
molybdenum mine in the northern Lori province.
GDP growth was also dragged down by an 8.5 percent fall in agricultural
production. Government officials blame it on unfavorable weather conditions.
In its comprehensive policy program approved by the parliament last week, Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government pledged to ensure that the domestic
economy expands by at least 5 percent annually for the next five years. It said
rising exports will be the “main engine” of that growth.
The program reaffirms Pashinian’s repeated pledges to carry out an “economic
revolution” that will significantly reduce poverty and unemployment in Armenia.
It says the government will improve tax administration, ease business
regulations, guarantee fair competition, and stimulate exports and innovation.
Mining Giant Becomes Armenia’s Top Taxpayer
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - A copper ore-processing plant in Kajaran, February 6, 2016.
An Armenian mining enterprise replaced the national gas distribution network
last year as the country’s largest corporate taxpayer, a senior government
official revealed on Wednesday.
Rafik Mashadian, the deputy head of the State Revenue Committee (SRC), said
that the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine (ZCMC) more than doubled its tax
payments, to 51 billion drams ($105 million), in 2018.
“This company had the largest increase [in tax payments,]” Mashadian told
RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
The sharp rise contrasted with a 10 percent drop in the combined 2018 output of
Armenia’s mining and metallurgical companies. They still accounted for more
than 40 percent of Armenian exports.
Located in Kajaran, a small down in the southeastern Syunik province, ZCMC
reportedly employs more than 4,000 people. A German company, Cronimet,
nominally owns 75 percent of it.
The rest of ZCMC is controlled by at least two obscure Armenian firms.
Ownership of those firms has long been a subject of speculation, with some
local commentators and opposition politicians linking them to former President
Serzh Sarkisian or his predecessor Robert Kocharian.
According to the SRC, Armenia’s largest cigarette manufacturer, Grand Tobacco,
also significantly increased its tax contributions and became the second
largest taxpayer in 2018. It is followed by Gazprom Armenia, the national gas
network owned by Russia’s Gazprom giant. Gazprom Armenia had paid more taxes
than any other local firm in 2017.
The Armenian government’s overall tax revenue was up by more than 14 percent,
at 1.3 trillion drams ($2.7 billion), last year. Large companies generated
about three-quarters of it.
Mashadian attributed the increase to economic growth and a tough crackdown on
tax evasion declared by the government.
Vahagn Khachatrian, an independent economist, said while the figure is
encouraging he is puzzled by a surge in taxes collected by the SRC in December.
He wondered if the SRC is continuing to force businesses to pay taxes in
advance of their anticipated earnings.
“I’m worried that that vicious practice of advance payments [collected from
companies] may have continued,” Khachatrian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
Mashadian ruled out that. “Media claims that the SRC is meeting its targets by
pressuring businesses are not true,” insisted the SRC official.
Mediators Start Fresh Trip To Karabakh Conflict Zone
Armenia -- Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (R) meets with the co-chairs of the
OSCE Minsk Group in Yerevan, .
U.S., Russian and French mediators met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in
Yerevan on Wednesday at the start of a fresh tour of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict zone which follows a series of high-level Armenian-Azerbaijani
negotiations.
A statement by Pashinian’s press office said they “outlined further steps” in
the negotiation process and discussed ways of creating an “appropriate
atmosphere” for that. “They stressed the importance of implementing
understandings on maintaining the ceasefire regime,” it said.
According to the statement, Pashinian also briefed the three diplomats
co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group on his meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev held in Davos, Switzerland January 22. It was their third face-to-face
encounter since September.
The Davos meeting came a week after the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign
ministers met in Paris in the presence of the Minsk Group co-chairs. According
to the mediators, the ministers acknowledged the need for “taking concrete
measures to prepare the populations for peace.”
Those developments fuelled Armenian media and opposition speculation about
far-reaching agreements reached by Pashinian and Aliyev. Some critics claimed
that Pashinian may have agreed to make significant territorial concessions to
Azerbaijan.
The prime minister brushed aside these “conspiracy theories” on January 23. He
stated a week later that Armenia and Karabakh will not agree to such
concessions to Azerbaijan in return for mere peace in the region. Baku
criticized that statement, saying that it could undermine the peace process.
On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cautioned against excessive
expectations of decisive progress towards a Karabakh settlement. “Given that
the new government of Armenia was formed only recently, additional time is
needed to understand just how intensively and far it is possible to advance the
settlement process at this stage,” he told a news conference in Moscow.
“The co-chairs and the OSCE can only help to create conditions for dialogue,”
said Lavrov. “Decisions will have to be made in direct negotiations between the
parties.”
Lavrov met with his Armenian counterpart Zohrab Mnatsakanian on February 16 on
the sidelines of an international security forum in Munich, Germany.
Tsarukian’s Bodyguard To Stand Trial For Assault
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenian - Eduard Babayan (L) attends a parliament session in Yerevan, January
15, 2019.
A parliament deputy who was until recently Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK)
leader Gagik Tsarukian’s chief bodyguard will go on trial soon on charges of
violent assault.
Eduard Babayan was arrested in July hours after a 50-year-old man in Yerevan
was hospitalized with serious injuries. The latter claimed to have been beaten
up at a compound of Armenia’s National Olympic Committee headed by Tsarukian.
He said he was hit by Tsarukian before being repeatedly kicked and punched by
Babayan and another person.
Both Tsarukian and Babayan strongly denied the allegation. The burly bodyguard
was charged even though his alleged victim later retracted his incriminating
testimony.
Babayan was freed on bail in August. He was elected to the Armenian parliament
on the BHK ticket in December.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General told RFE/RL’s Armenian service on
Wednesday that the criminal investigation into the incident has been completed
and its findings have been sent to a court in Yerevan.
This means that Babayan will stand trial after all. The accusation brought
against him carries a prison term of between three and seven years.
Armenia - Businessman Gagik Tsarukian and his chief bodyguard Eduard Babayan
(R) at an election campaign rally in Hrazdan, 11 April 2012.
The BHK, which is in opposition to the Armenian government and boasts the
second largest group in the parliament, did not immediately react to the
development. Tsarukian’s party had defended its decision to nominate Babayan as
a candidate in the December parliamentary elections.
Armenian media have repeatedly implicated Tsarukian’s bodyguards -- and Babayan
in particular -- in violence, including against opponents of former
governments, in the past. The BHK leader, who is also one of the country’s
richest men, always denied those claims.
In a police video released in July, Babayan’s alleged victim said that he was
attacked after imploring Tsarukian to help ensure that Armenian law-enforcement
authorities withdraw an international arrest warrant issued for his son accused
of draft evasion.
The young man is a boxer and Russian national who was told to serve in
Armenia’s armed forces after receiving Armenian citizenship in order to compete
for the South Caucasus country in international tournaments.
Press Review
“Zhoghovurd” says that parliamentary opposition criticism of the Armenian
government’s policy program approved by the parliament was not backed up by a
“comprehensive analysis” of the document’s content. The paper says the program
has instead been thoroughly examined by two parties not represented in the
National Assembly: the Armenian National Congress (HAK) and Dashnaktsutyun. “It
does not matter whether or not points made by these two parties are
acceptable,” it says. “The important thing here is the very fact [of their
detailed analysis.]” This is further proof that there are few genuine parties
in Armenia, concludes the paper.
“Zhamanak” reports that parliament speaker Ararat Mirzoyan has voiced his
opposition to the idea of restoring the presidential system of government in
Armenia which has been put forward by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s
Armenian National Congress (HAK). The paper welcomes the statement and says any
major constitutional reform must be based on consensus.
Lragir.am writes on reports that former President Serzh Sarkisian’s embattled
brother Aleksandr has donated $18.5 million to the state in the face of
criminal proceedings launched against him. It quotes a human rights activist,
Artur Sakunts, as saying that the donation was “voluntary.” “We don’t know what
criminal case has been opened and what accusations have been brought against
Sashik Sarkisian,” he says. “Nor do we know the estimated value of his
properties and financial assets. All we know is the publicized information
about his $30 million bank account.” Sakunts wonders why Sarkisian has not
transferred the entire sum to the state treasury.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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