The ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Levon Yolyan, Economy Minister Artsvik Minasyan, World Bank Armenia director Laura Bailey, IMF Armenia director Theresa Daban Sanchez, US Ambassador to Armenia H.E. Richard Mills and UK Ambassador H.E. Judith Farnworth.
“I can neither comment, nor confirm, nor deny the 10% GDP growth. However, as compared to the previous year, it’s more dynamic this year: if last year it was simply unbearable, this year slight dynamics is observed in light industry and it’s mainly in the direction of Russia. In other directions neither 10 nor 5% growth is observed.”
It’s difficult to memorize any case, when representatives of Turkey and Azerbaijan showed such interest towards any investment project, implemented in Armenia. However, Company specialists provide detailed answers to all questions.
The Government decided to cancel the necessity of work permit for foreigners until 2018. Artem Asatryan, minister of labor and social affairs, said the number of foreign workers in Armenia isn’t so high to create difficulties for the national labor market.
We have covered indices of 200 biggest taxpayers out of 1000. These are large enterprises, which paid taxes and duties to the state budget with the total amount of AMD 290 million for the first semester 2016. In other words, these are Armenia’s mega companies. Companies holding the first 200 positions in the list paid AMD 261.3 billion to the state budget.
“Armenia for us is a strategic partner in the Caucasus and we systematically build our relations of alliance along the most sensitive lines and in the international scene, the CIS space first and foremost,” Putin said during narrow format negotiations with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan on August 10.
In his words, numerous cooperation projects may be implemented between Armenia and China’s largest Heilongjiang Province with the population of 38 million. He stated that during the meetings in RA Ministry of Economy an agreement has been reached to organize mutual visits of reporters to get more information, “Armenia is a new market for us, we need to first of all get acquainted with one other.”
“It seems to me here the mentality and psychology of our authorities should be changed. The April war, selling of Russian armaments to Azerbaijan, all these show that by unconditionally coaxing Russia does no benefit to Armenia, and Russia should be treated as a partner. Thus, the claim should be introduced to Russia, if Armenia considers itself an independent country, then it should think of its own interests.”
Hovik Abrahamyan made a rather noteworthy statement, which was an indirect confession, that growth indices, at large, mean nothing. “Unfortunately, growth of the last year and a half wasn’t accompanied with rise in well-being. We should do our best to make economic growth inclusive, so that any member of the society felt changes in his/her living standards,” he said.
In particular, Artsvik Minasyan, RA Minister of Economy, told reporters on July 15 that besides official data, Ministry of Economy also implements internal monitoring and introduced some data from the results of that monitoring. Ministry of Economy on the basis of the semester recorded 10% growth for industry, however, 8.9% growth was observed. 20% growth was anticipated for mining, however, it reduced to 18.8%.
