The reader can go further in detail about the topics discussed during the conference in another article of this newspaper. As always, state officials make speeches before starting the actual conference and this conference was no exception. As usual, they assured the people gathered that everything is going great in Armenia.
Head of the State Income Policy Department Vakhtang Mirumyan said that Armenia’s taxing system is liberal. Since the topic was foreign trade, he stated that taxes paid in the country when exporting products are returned. According to Mr. Mirumyan, there are some developments in the field. Whereas in 2003 the state returned 3.5 billion AMD, in 2004 and 2005 that number went up to 10.5 and 16 billion AMD respectively. Meanwhile, specialists are of the opinion that the mechanism places many barriers in front of businessmen because they have to go through paperwork. Experts say that businessmen have to pay a 20% bribe just to get their taxes paid back.
Minister of Trade and Economic Development of Armenia Tigran Davtyan also made an interesting speech. Based on the program, he was supposed to speak about the balance of payments, how products are imported in and exported out of Armenia and other problems. The minister talked about the structure of foreign trade only after he was asked about it. He simply “forgot” about the rest of the issues. In general, one got the impression that we are living in Germany, rather than Armenia. It wouldn’t be surprising to hear someone ask when Armenia is going to join the Great Eight?
“We must develop exportation and Armenia has all the means of doing that,” said Mr. Davtyan.
Of course, the participants discussed Armenia’s World Trade Organization membership.
“WTO membership showed us that Armenia has a well-structured economy, which corresponds to international norms,” says T. Davtyan.
What did Armenia really get out of joining the WTO for the past three years? There is no special research conducted on this, but Davtyan talks in general.
“We got out of dual economic ties and moved on to cooperation between different countries.”
Now do you understand what we got out of it? Then maybe one day we will understand why the border between the two WTO members Armenia and Turkey is closed. After all, that goes against the WTO charter.
Basically, Armenia doesn’t have any problems. Everything is fine. The only question is who the officials want to convince-us or the foreigners sitting in the auditorium? Another thing: if they talk like this in Armenia, God knows what they say to foreigners abroad. They must praise Armenia so much. Well, I must say that that’s a talent…