Armenia’s government must make efforts to improve republic’s positions in Doing Business-PM

YEREVAN, October 25. /ARKA/. This year’s advance of Armenia in  Doing Business 2013 report should encourage the government to make further efforts to improve the republic’s rating positions in the future, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said at the Cabinet meeting on Thursday.

Armenia has moved 18 places up in the annual ranking «Doing Business – 2013» of the World Bank (WB) and the International Financial Corporation (IFC), and is now the 32nd in the ratings (the 50th the year before).

Armenia is between the Netherlands (the 31st) and Belgium (the 33rd) in the new ranking, having left behind France (the 34th), Israel (the 38th), South African Republic (the 39th) and Spain (the 44th).

“Leaders of many states emphasize Doing Business rating, which presents vision in  business conditions of a country. It is very important for us that Armenia is the 32nd out of 184, however having analyzed the rating we realized that the government must make further efforts and conduct huge work,” Sargsyan said.

He highlighted the position Armenia had today was due to all those reforms, which had been implemented in different economy sectors. 

Armenia improved its indicators for a number of categories, particularly for «Dealing with Construction Permits» (from the 49th the year before to the 46th now), «Getting Electricity» (from 143rd to 101st), «Protecting Investors» (from the 98th to the 25th), «Paying Taxes» (from 152nd to 108th).

Yet, Armenia's indicators have become poorer on some other topics. In particular, «Starting a Business» (from the 10th place before to the 11th now),  «Getting Credit» (from the 38th to the 40th) and «Trading Across Borders» (from the 106th to the 106th).

No changes are recorded for the following categories: «Registering Property» (4th place), «Enforcing Contracts» (the 91st) and «Resolving Insolvency» (the 63rd).

Referring to business expenditures in communal services, PM reminded about the measures over reducing service sphere’s expenses last year, also  mentioned in WB report, “however, we should not stop at this point.”

“The most urgent task for us is to reduce this burden for small and medium-sized business,” he underscored.

“Another issue is related to customs clearance and trade, expenses for Armenian products export before reaching the first sea port. From this angle, we are very vulnerable, as according to WB, our neighbors outpace us in the number of necessary certificates,” he said instructing to cut the number of these certificates to five.

Freight transportation to Poti port (Georgia) costs much- over $1.8 thousand per container, “ what hinders carrying out business in 

Armenia, and we must work on it.”

Another problem for Armenia, according to PM, is the fact that it takes a year to proceed court cases.

Thereby, he instructed Justice Minister of Armenia Hrayr Tovmasyan to design methods resolving this issue.

“Court case proceedings must take short time and little money for private sector,” he highlighted.

Singapore topped the ranking on Ease of Doing Business for the seventh successive year, followed by Hong Kong, New Zealand, the USA, Denmark, Norway, Great Britain, Republic of Korea, Georgia and Australia.

Georgia is the leader among post Soviet Union countries (the 9th in the ranking) and is followed by Estonia (21st), Latvia (25th), Lithuania (27th), Armenia (32nd), Kazakhstan (49th), Belarus (58th), Azerbaijan (67th), Kyrgyzstan (70th), Moldova (83rd), Russia (112nd), Ukraine (137th), Tajikistan (141st) and Uzbekistan (154th).

On the whole, Eastern European and Central Asian countries have left behind the countries of Eastern Asia and the Pacific region in the 2012 ranking and have become the second region on ease of doing business after the high-income OECD(Organisation for Economic 

Co-operation and Development) countries.

The Central African Republic closes the ranking. –0—