The American Forbes has published a rating list entitled “Russia’s real estate kings 2014” with 30 people. This list includes local and foreign businessmen’s names who own commercial real estate properties in Russia. The classification is written in an order of incomes that the owners of real estate businesses could earn from their properties. This list does not include incomes from other businesses. Samvel Karapetyan, head of Tashir holding, is in the second place of this list with $3.8 billion (29th place). His income from rent of properties is estimated at $960 million.
After joining the Customs Union prices for many products in Armenia will increase. This will affect mainly products that are imported from non-CU countries. For most products imported from third countries the customs fee is maximum 10%, which is considered low. According to the policy of the CU, customs fees are much higher than what Armenia has now.
There is a debate going on about the potential skyrocketing of prices for certain types of products in Armenia after joining the Customs Union.
According to our information last summer the brother of the Armenian Premier Ashot Sargsyan, who resigned from the post of deputy-director of Nairit, received 42 million USD for severance from the factory during a short period of time. And this happened in the case when everybody knows how difficult the financial situation of the factory is and how the personnel of the factory didn’t get paid for many months.
The “black days” of Nairit CJST will soon end. 168-Zham has information that the factory will shut down on March 1. The recent failures of Nairit come to prove this. On these days the management of the factory is in a quite tense and worried state. We have written that the factory was making its lay-off lists for employees.
It was expected that the office of former president Robert Kocharyan would disseminate a statement in answer to energy minister Armen Movsisyan’s and education minister Armen Ashotyan’s announcements.
It here – population census 2011 results are published, The State Statistical service (STS) published these data during the holidays, when people were busy with celebrations. This was a result of five-year hard work of the government. People had forgotten about the census when the findings were published. In was in 2009 when the government made a decision to organize population census.
The topic of “construction balloon” will stay an important topic of political discussions in Armenia for a long time. The debate between Robert Kocharyan and Tigran Sargsyan does not come to an end, but instead it is becoming even more active. To note, the debate started after the Prime-Minister discussed economic issues in his New Year address and said that during the previous government there was a “construction balloon” which had to blast and result in negative consequences for the economy of the country. In fact this message was addressed to the second president Robert Kocharyan, who reacted very aggressively, and even said words that could insult the PM.
Since the economic downturn in 2008 and the fall off in gold and other commodity prices in the last two years it has become a challenge to attract investments in any business, especially in the mining sector. Mining projects require large capital investments and are often high risk, considering the market volatility and initial funding needed for exploration that does not always guarantee positive results.
According to the freshest results of the Armenian National Statistics Service the index of economic activeness of Armenia was 3.1% for January-November. But the start of the year was pretty good and in the beginning of the year the same index was 8%. The optimism of the government has decreased. This year the government planned 6,2% economic growth but the president assigned the government to reach 7%. But according to the current picture we only have 4.1%.
