Armenian Restaurant Association asks government for assistance

YEREVAN, March 27. /ARKA/. The Armenian Restaurant Association (ARA) unveiled today a number of proposals for  the government, saying they  are designed to ensure the minimum viability of the public catering industry and related services, which were forced to a downtime by the coronavirus outbreak.

“It took the public catering sector of Armenia’s hospitality industry more than a decade to become a high-quality service,’ ARA said in a statement on its Facebook page.

‘Tens of thousands of jobs were created in this sector that provides employment for vulnerable layers of the society – - dishwashers, workers, waiters, etc.,  which are the positions that do not require professional education. It is also the business industry that represents Armenia the best way to foreigners,’ the statement said.

‘Ever since the spread of the coronavirus infection in Armenia and from the very first days of the state of emergency, the country’s public catering companies have been guided by the priority of public interests and continued to  fulfill their social and tax obligations, as well as implement charity projects, assisting  fellow citizens, most of all affected by coronavirus,’ the statement said.

It said in order to propose solutions to take the sector and related services from the current crisis with minimal losses, ARA, which unites about 300 restaurants and cafes, initiated meetings with representatives of relevant government agencies, proposing the following:

1. To freeze for the public catering companies the payments of turnover and income taxes for the last month of the first quarter and for the second quarter.

2. To order the Central Bank to annul the interests accrued from loans in March and in the second quarter

 3. To discuss the possibility of securing cash flows on favorable terms - in the form of interest-free loans, for public catering companies, if necessary.

4. To provide employees who appeared in a forced downtime with monetary compensation in the amount of half the salary for the period of inactivity. Also to order employers to pay the second half (Article 186 of the Labor Code establishes payment for employees during the period of inactivity: for each hour of inactivity the employee is paid the  2/3 of his/her  average hourly salary before downtime, but no less than the minimum hourly rate established by law).

Unfortunately, the government’s package of “Measures to Promote Economic Entities”, adopted on March 26, does not contain solutions that would support the public catering industry and other services for the following reasons:
1. The companies, closed due to coronavirus, cannot attract fresh loans, thereby further increasing their credit burden and financial obligations.

2. The government proposes to provide loans with interest in order to ensure the fulfillment of tax obligations, without worrying about how a business that finds itself in debt and does not receive a profit will fulfill its obligations in the future.

3. The one-time grant stipulated by the fifth government-designed aid package, which, in fact, amounts to 20% of the monthly salary of each employee, cannot solve even short-term social problems, the severity of which, in fact, once again rests on the shoulders of non-working companies.

‘Based on the above-said, we urge the government to reconsider our proposals, which are designed to ensure the minimal viability for the sector until the crisis is overcome,’ the statement said.-0-