Representatives of the Armenian Ministry of Economy and other state structures, the Central Bank of Armenia, Stock Exchange of Armenia, the EBRD, IMF and Asian Development Bank presented reports on the economy, and especially, on investment environment.
“Reforms have been carried out in the spheres of tax, customs, protection of intellectual property rights. As a result, large investments were done by American companies, including, I’d like to mention the acquisition of “Vorotan” cascade by “Contour Global” last year, which is the largest American investment in Armenia,” the Ambassador said.
“Who said we didn’t formerly had that wish or didn’t fight for that? Of course, it should be implemented.”
Pursuant assessments of the World Bank in case of looking into the issue, the snapshot is rather disappointing. According to its report issued recently, number of those consuming more than USD 10 daily per capita comprise about 3% of Armenia’s population.
The scientist, touching upon the “residents” of offshore zones, made the following comparison, “It’s like the Star Wars scene: you have the tax dodgers in one corner, the arms dealers in another, the kleptocrats over here. There’s also those using tax havens for money laundering, or fraud.”
One thing is obvious—engineer armorers don’t participate in these discussions. And it’s not clear: are we able to produce armaments or not? We don’t know either: are we able to repair types of armaments or no?
“Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project will be put into operation till the end of this year. Currently intensive operations are ongoing. Let me mention one crucial point: the project is being implemented in a territory with very complicated relief.”
These days ICIJ released the Panama Papers, where three dozens of people from Armenia are included in the offshore structures. Note Mihran Poghosyan, former head of Armenia’s Compulsory Enforcement Service, is also included in the list.
Former owner of Hrazdan-Cement Mika Baghdasarov mortgaged it for a loan from VTB Armenia Bank and due to withdrawal of liabilities, shares have been passed on to the Bank.
There are a few groundings for that—offshore scandal [Panama offshore scandal], domestic policy, reduction of external reserves linked to fall in price for oil, social issues.
