New Year holidays year by year make one interesting reality more visible. The 1700-year Christian Armenian nation is more interested in what animal year the coming is than the Christmas importance.
The wishes have also become peculiar. They say that this year is a pig’s or boar’s year. During the few days after December 31 I have heard many times the expression, “let’s not be pigs to each other.” Of course, everybody jokes about those things just like about the rumors that it’s forbidden to have pork on the New Year’s tables. But it turned out that the government is anyway trying to make us be “piggy” to each other.
In order to make things more clear let’s imagine that you are leaving for Scotland to travel or on business. Let’s suppose your friend has asked you to take him three bottles of Scotch whiskey. You buy five bottles of whiskey in one of the stores of Glasgow (two bottles for yourself). Of course, you know that there is certain amount of alcohol you can take with you back home. Otherwise you will pay taxes. Thus, you get back to Armenia and the customs service employee warns you at Zvartnots airport that you are allowed to take only two bottles to Armenia.
According to #251 government decision, dated March 29, 2001, up to two liters of alcohol is allowed to bring to Armenia. If the amount of alcohol exceeds the defined the measure you must pay for that. Even if you wish to pay for the extra three bottles you still may be told that you are not allowed to bring that amount of alcohol to Armenia. The reason is that the labels of the bottles of whiskey, which you bought from a Scottish store must read in Armenian, repeating, in Armenian, the name of the producing country, ingredients, day of production and mention best before.
This order has been acting since January 1, 2007. We’ll still speak about the mentioned decision but now let’s speak about our friend and his whiskeys. Having been well aware of the “uncorrupt” nature of our customs service employees I may confidently say that neither the money nor the language will help. The extra three bottles will be confiscated and destroyed in the relevant place in the relevant way. Now what to do with the two bottles? Gove to the friend or keep one for yourself? It looks like a light expression of a “piggy” character. Even if you somehow succeed in bringing the mentioned whiskeys to Armenia you will next time refuse to bring anything. Everybody will refuse. And it will look like that everybody is acting like a “pig” in the pig’s year.
The decision (#616) of the government on making the labels of food products mandatory was made on April 20, 2006. According to that decision starting from January 1, 2007 the following food items are subject to mandatory inspection of labels.
– Meat, including poultry,
– Milk and milk products,
– Bird’s egg and egg powder,
– Coffee, tea,
– Natural oils,
– Fish, canned fish, fish caviar or substitutes,
– Shrimps and other similar products,
– Sugar ground sugar,
– Cacao and products made of it,
– Candies,
– Baby food,
– Macaroni,
– Bread and buns,
– Canned products,
– Fruit juice,
– Yeast,
– Ketchup, mayonnaise,
– Dried broth and bouillons,
– Ice-cream,
– Kissel,
– Alcohol drinks, mineral water, beverages.
The food products included in this list are subject to Armenian labeling starting from July 1. As informed last month by the head of the food production, measuring and appropriation department of the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, Robert Dayan the shops starting from January 2, 2007 are not allowed to have products, which don’t have Armenian labels. And the products, which are not sold, will be allowed to be sold until they are best before.
Perhaps this is a normal step of market relations as the Armenian consumer has the right to receive information about products in Armenian. How expedient, however, is it to be based on such a long list of products, which may cause increase of customs taxes? Maybe a few people want to import a few bottles more brandy and are willing to pay extra for that. It’s worth informing that the measures of taxes are defined based on Government decision # 251. According to the decision, it’s allowed to export, for example, 1 kg coffee or tea, up to 0,5 kg caviar, up to 1 kg of various food products (this regards air transportation) without paying the required tariffs. In fact, if in past it was possible to import by plane 1 kg caviar and pay the required taxes for the extra 0,5 kg, now people are deprived of such an opportunity. There must be mandatory Armenian labels. And it’s a miracle to find any product with Armenian labels abroad.
The issue also has the other side. The labeling of the product is done in the factory. And the factory will hardly issue labels and boxes in Armenian for small orders. This means that the merchants, who import retail sale products to Armenia from Georgia, will become unemployed. This will bring to the extreme monopolization of the economy because only few great importers will be able to cut a deal with producers to issue Armenian labels.
One more factor… The Armenian market is very small. And certain products, such as expensive, whiskey and French cognac, have a little consumption. Will the company agree to issue labels for 100 or 200 bottles of its product? It’s hard to tell. If the company doesn’t agree it will mean that the importer won’t be able to import them and the only way of doing that is to bring not more than 2 bottles. Dayan has also mentioned that this decision wouldn’t cost much for the importers. The importers themselves have different opinions. Some think that there won’t be problems with the factories, some think the opposite. Of course, each law and decision has its both negative and positive sides. The mentioned factors may be considered inevitable.
However, by considering our reality we may confidently say that it contains a great corruption risk. It means that no matter what there will be people, who can deal with customs service officers by bribing them. Thus, it turns out that this decision has become a great opportunity for the customs service officers to make additional money. We are a generous nation. Thus we won’t worry about paying a few thousand AMD to the customs officer to bring the whiskey our friend asked, will we? The customs officer, being very modest and shy, will hardly refuse to help us. In other words the customs service officers received a wonderful Christmas gift from the Santa. Let’s mention that our government has given many presents to itself. For example, the increase of taxes for imported cars, the changes of the State Auto Inspection system, by which 30% of written acts goes to the inspector… Shall we fill the budget or not? The grounds for presents were prepared through different boring laws made last year, which the media and the opposition paid little attention to. And the results are seen starting from January 1 because in Armenia chicks are counted in mid-winter instead of autumn.