Friday, 29 February 2008
The agenda of today
's meeting of the Council on Economic Strategy and Policy Coordination which was held at the Office of RA Prime Minister comprised the following items: approval of the concept on introduction in the Republic of Armenia of a system of obligatory insurance of responsibility stemming from the damage caused to third parties due to operation of vehicles, the draft law on restriction of cash transactions and a package of bills providing changes and amendments to a number of corresponding laws, as well as to the RA civil and labor codes, the draft law on consumer crediting and a package of bills providing changes stemming from it, as well as amendments to other laws. The agenda items were presented to the Council by RA CBA Chairman Tigran Sargsyan. Concerning the concept on introduction in Armenia of a system of obligatory insurance of responsibility arising from damage caused to third parties due to operation of vehicles, it has been noted that this is an attempt of introducing in Armenia a scheme of obligatory insurance the effective functioning of which may stimulate the development of the whole system of insurance. The concept has been developed based on the most advanced international practice, in particular, the Green Card system is currently being used in the European Union on the basis of which in almost all the countries of the world similar systems are operational with insignificant differences.The introduction of this system is conditioned by the recent growth in the number of those citizens having suffered losses due to the operations of such vehicles as represent enhanced threat to both public health and property which is not always duly and is completely compensated. The adoption of corresponding legal acts as a result of the introduction of this concept, it will be possible to create such an effective system for compensation paid to the victims of vehicle operations which will help solve a series of social problems associated with the solvency of third parties and receipt of compensation by the affected party.
The concept was approved by the Council. The Prime Minister has instructed to prepare a draft law on the basis of the given concept in order to submit to the Government for consideration.
According to Tigran Sargsyan, the draft law on restriction of cash operations provides that both cash and non-cash transactions are deemed to be a legal tender in the Republic of Armenia and nobody is entitled to decline or refuse non-cash forms of settlement. The submitted bill also prescribes what operations should be carried out by non-cash way, thus the payments which are carried out from the bank account of the payer as a result of which money resources subject to payment are charged on the bank account of the addressee are considered as non-cash payment. The bill was said to be importance also from the point of view of the ongoing fight against shadow economy. The package as approved by the Council will be submitted to the Government for consideration in accordance with the issued assignment.
The reason behind the passage of the RA law on consumer crediting is the protection of the rights of consumers, the establishment of uniform rules for crediting, the strengthening of financial intermediation capacity. Following discussions, it has been decided to recommend the Chairman of the CBA to prepare and submit such draft of the decision which would allow organizations selling consumer goods to finance their clients during the transaction.
