Republican Party of Armenia

 The Cabinet held today a regular meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan.

Opening the meeting, the Prime Minister addressed the audience: “I want to introduce a view, which is a major concern. Our government has repeatedly emphasized the need to create a business-friendly environment. We need to encourage domestic producers both in macroeconomic terms by providing a competitive environment, as well as by significantly reducing the number of interventions in the activities of economic entities. The State should be effective in its interventions, instead of keeping businesses in suspense days and weeks giving them a lot of unnecessary trouble. Therefore, I instruct the tax authority to undertake operative measures no more than once a year, resorting to extra checks only in exceptional cases based on strict arguments and with the Prime Minister’s permission.”

After the agenda had been approved, the Cabinet proceeded to the discussion.

The Cabinet approved the proposed amendments to the indicators specified in the 2015 budget bill, which was introduced to the National Assembly on October 2, 2014, as well as the summary of those 367 recommendations and conclusions submitted following the debates held in the National Assembly standing committees and during the plenary session.

Public agencies were given a day to submit proposals to the Finance Ministry concerning the government’s position, after which the Minster of Finance shall submit to the Government Staff the finalized version along with the summary.

The Minister-Chief of Government Staff was instructed to have the draft and the summary sent to the National Assembly at least 24 hours prior to the resumption of the debate.

The Government decided to reorganize the Yerevan State University and the Yerevan Medical University after Mekhitar Heratsi SNCOs into foundations. The change in status is supposed to promote international cooperation, improve the quality of education and ensure better management.

The meeting approved a set of amendments to the law “On administration and administrative proceedings and four other laws that are aimed at streamlining the gaps existing in public legal claims in order to have a court procedure for public legal claims in pursuit of money retrieval and, at the same time, preserve the order applicable to extra-judiciary proceedings.

At the same time, a transitional provision was passed to provide that within six months following the effectiveness of the proposed law those persons having committed administrative offences will be exempt from the obligation of settling the balance of the amount of penalties as prescribed by the new law.

This provision seeks to ensure the retroactive effect for such offences to traffic rules when the offender has not been properly notified of administrative acts, due to which the amount of penalty has increased.

Note that this Government-proposed regulation is in the best interest of tens of thousands of Armenian citizens. The package of draft amendments will be submitted to the National Assembly in the manner established by law.