Thursday, 30 November 2017
PM Suggests Decriminalizing Low-Risk Economic Crimes
A Cabinet sitting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan. Before proceeding to the agenda, the Prime Minister issued a number of instructions. The Premier’s first instruction suggested decriminalizing certain types of economic offences.
The Prime Minister instructed the Minister of Economic Development and Investments, the Minister of Justice and the Chairman of State Revenue Committee to develop and submit to the Government Staff within two months draft legal acts on decriminalizing such economic offences subject to prosecution under the applicable Criminal Code as are deemed to be of lower social risk, and which can be dealt with effectively through administrative or civil proceedings.
In order to simplify and facilitate the procedure of granting certificates of country of origin, Karen Karapetyan instructed the Minister of Economic Development and Investments to develop in cooperation with the Executive Director of the Center for Strategic Initiatives and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and submit within a month’s time to the Government Staff proposals for simplifying and clarifying the procedure for the expertise and issuance of such certificates. The proposals should make a point of relevant discretionary powers, state the need and specify the procedures for conducting an expertise, as well as eventually provide the grounds for refusal.
In order to ensure continuity in the provision of customs services to business entities in the period from December 2 through the end of the holiday season in January, the Premier suggested that the Head of State Revenue Committee and the Central Bank Chairman should set up duty hours on weekends and holiday days for staff at all customs checkpoints and commercial banks in accordance with a pre-determined working schedule
The Government approved a set of amendments to the 2018 State budget bill indicators, as well as the proposals and conclusions submitted on the part of NA standing committees, groups and factions, and individual MPs on the results of the budget bill debates held at the NA standing committee meetings and during the Plenary Session.
Minister of Finance Vardan Aramyan noted that due to some circumstances and new information that emerged after the first reading of the 2018 draft law “On State Budget,” expenditures were raised by 15 billion drams. In particular, the largest increase is stated in the health sector – AMD 4 billion; the allocations to the Reserve Fund have been stepped up nearly as much again.
The Government agreed to the proposal to sign a protocol on amendments to the agreement on the order of formation of prices for the supply of natural gas to the Republic of Armenia as concluded between the Armenian and Russian governments on December 2, 2013. At the same time, the natural gas price for the Republic of Armenia in the period from January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2018 is set at USD150 per thousand cubic meters. An agreement on this was reached at the meeting held between the Prime Ministers of the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation during Russian Premier Dmitry Medvedev’s recent visit to Armenia. It was also noted that the Government of Armenia will continue to show a differentiated approach to vulnerable households living in border communities and processing enterprises by applying the special gas tariffs established for these groups last year.
The Government approved the State Property Management Program for 2018-2020. The program provides that from 2018 a new toolkit will be introduced for monitoring the financial and economic status of commercial organizations with state participation, analyzing and summarizing their performance, and determining their effectiveness. More effective methods and tools will be introduced in the process of selling state property,. In particular, the sale of property subject to alienation in 2018 will be carried out through electronic auctions.
The meeting approved the Government’s legislative initiatives with regard to a number of draft laws. In particular, it is expected that owing to the approaches set forth in the Constitution and as a result of the adoption of the finalized draft of the constitutional law “On RA Judicial Code,” the judiciary will be provided with necessary functional, procedural, material and social prerequisites.
Following the adoption of a package of draft laws on amendments to the Tax Code and related laws, it is expected that equal competitive conditions will be created for large and small companies producing, selling and importing brandy spirits and bottled cognac, which will help small companies to produce and import spirits of cognac and brandy.
With reference to the above package of bills, the Prime Minister noted the importance of the legislative initiative and suggested discussing the matter once again with all interested parties in order to assess the risks.
The Government adopted a resolution on the failure to file an application for declaring the debtor bankrupt in terms of monetary obligations to the state budget. The purpose of the resolution is to expand the possibilities for financial recovery of economic entities that have grounds for bankruptcy. In particular, it is proposed to determine the instances when the State Revenue Committee should refrain from submitting applications for declaring bankrupt those debtors having tax liabilities.
