The commission informs that “Salex Group” company has dominating positions in the field of sugar import, which covers 91,4% of the sale in the domestic market of sugar. During the previous year the sugar importing company of NA deputy Samvel Alexanyan, “Flit Food” company was considered to be the dominating company in that field and covered 99,4% of the sale in the market. Even though that company was not registered under the name of the deputy, however everyone knows that it was his business. What happened this year? Have they distributed that business? Has Samvel Alexanyan decided not to import sugar any more and keep only 7% for him? Of course not- the only thing that has changed is the fact that most of the sugar will be imported by “Aalex” company that belongs to him as well. As for this information, besides our sources of information it is clear that this is the deputy’s company since the name “Salex” contains the first letters of his first name. This company is not registered under his name either. Anyway, we wonder why he managed to found another company if he has the other one. The problem is the fact that “Flit Food” was considered to be a foreign company since it had foreign share in it and was considered as a foreign investor company. That company benefited from the law that entitled foreign companies not to pay 50% of income tax during a time fixed by the law. That period ended in 2006 for “Flit Food”. We still don’t know whether this company is considered a foreign investor and whether it has privileges to pay less tax or not. The only thing that we know is the fact that during these nine months “Salex Group” only paid 10 million dram as income tax. Besides that, during the previous years “Flit Food” was declared as a dominating company and thus had to be held accountable for its incomes and profits. Nevertheless, now that company has only 7% in the market and is not considered a dominating company and does not have to be held accountable for its profits. As for the other company, its owner will use the opportunity to get profits and not be held accountable as far as that term does not terminate for this company too. This process may be repeated several times. Both of these companies have not accepted the invitation to attend the meeting of the commission and give explanations about their business activities.
The next field is the petroleum market, where the first two dominating companies are “Flesh” and “City Petrol Service” companies with the following market proportion: 44,1 and 40,4 %. This two companies are dominating as well as in the market of diesel oil with the following proportion 42,8 and 38,8%. Armenian legislation does not prohibit having dominating positions in the market, the only problem is the fact that such companies have to report their activities and be accountable for price formation to the abovementioned commission. The discussion on the issue of petroleum and diesel oil import was sensational due to the fact that the chief-accountant of “City Petrol Service” company, Mr. Esayan said that the other companies of the field imported oil from Iran and had super profits as well. They had tried to do that too, but met obstacles. Mr. Esayan did not mention any more. Deputy director of “Flesh” company, Moushegh Elchyan refuted the rumors that they had imported petroleum from Iran: “we have imported it from Bulgaria and Romania”.
Nevertheless, there have been a lot of rumors that that oil importers import cheap chemical materials from Iran to mix the oil with that so that they can get super profits. In other words, by mixing the imported petroleum with such materials they make the net price lower and make the quality go down at the same time. Anyway, the prices are the same everywhere in the city regardless of whether it is imported from Romania, Iran or Bulgaria. The biggest difference is the 10 drams, which is not significant. The representative of “Flesh” company wasn’t able to explain the reason. The prices in the gas stations of “Flesh” company are almost the same than other gas stations of companies that buy the products from them. This is enough to conclude that a big part of this market is shady and there are large amounts of illegal income. It is hard to say what kind of reports these companies may make to explain the way they form the prices and whether the commission will do anything or not, however one thing is clear; usually such discussions are just like staging and don’t bring to any results and those who have super profits will once again be backed by the authorities and will continue getting their profits. As for the commission, it can’t do anything neither morally nor based on the law. Iran will not sell petroleum to Armenia openly since Armenia is in a state of war. Iran has a contract with Azerbaijan not to sell oil to any other countries that may be in war with them. As for the Armenian importers, they have found a good way to pass all those barriers and can get super profits. As for the importers, they refuted that and the rumors that they had more profits than expected due to the currency exchange rate changes. According to M. Elchyan, the exchange rate changes have made it possible to not increase the prices too much and keep them stable.
The SCCD has surveyed other markets too and, for instance, in the field of brandy production, the commission has found that the “Brandy Company of Yerevan” is dominant in that market. The head of the commission, Ashot Shahnazaryan cannot understand why this company sells a bottle of brandy with the original price of 1.200 dram at 11.000 dram. Generally the head of the commission cannot understand the huge difference in the prices of whole sale and retail prices of the products of that company. Besides that, Shahnazaryan could not understand other calculations too and assured that he would ask them to explain that in the future. As for the field of services, they declared that the “New Shahab” company was dominant in dry-cleaning, which belongs to а person that we know well-Azeri businessman Parviz Alamdar Nosrati.