Thursday, 14 March 2013
Real Estate Appraisal Procedures to be Determined
A Cabinet sitting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.
The meeting approved the concept of the law on “Real Estate Appraisal Activity” and the concept of making amendments and additions to the law on Administrative Violations, adoption of which would help fully implement inspections of people conducting such activities in compliance with the requirements of normative legal acts; legislative gaps impeding the settlement of the problem would be lifted.
“We had received suggestion from the World Bank on making the financial resources available, and there was an episode that was related to the evaluation of real estate. We agreed to hold a discussion about that,” said Tigran Sargsyan. “In particular, it refers to the fact the same property is being evaluated with significant differences by various assessors, and the problem is that, for example, commercial banks are working with three or four assessors who they trust. As a rule, properties receive very low evaluations from these assessors. But there are other assessors in the market, who make qualitatively different assessments. Now we are faced with the task to understand what is going on in this field, and how to solve this problem.”
Addressing the President of the State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition, the Prime Minister suggested to study if there is competition and if these services have free access, or there are some arrangements that disrupt the normal development of the market. Within a week a sitting will be held, which will refer to the recommendations of the World Bank and other additional steps to improve the environment.
The Cabinet approved sub-programs about the development of education of 2011-2015 State Program, one of which aims to relieve the load of having to pay tuition by students studying in state or state accredited universities. Thus, the government, besides refinancing the amount financed by a credit organization for “Apartments for Youth” program, should also provide the subsidy funds of loan interests (2 percent for each beneficiary, and 3 percent for students with excellent progress during the previous year). According to estimates, in 2013 AMD 4 billion loans will be provided for the first 4 years, with 10-year repayment period, for the provision of subsidies this year only AMD 21 million will be necessary, which was allocated by the RA Ministry of Finance.
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan attached importance to this decision and instructed the Minister of Finance to make the details known to the public by means of media, so that the students and their parents are aware of the opportunities created for them by the state, know who they should apply to and what documents to submit.
The meeting approved the application procedure of the national trademark in compliance with the requirements of technical regulations, the sample of the trademark, which will be temporary applied in our country, before the full and complete approximation of RA legislation to EU: a detailed discussion of the document was followed by the Prime Minister’s assignment to discuss it with the private sector as well, determine a reasonable period of time for the application of the decision, so that the import of the national trademark does not surprise the beneficiaries.
By its decision, the Cabinet distributed allocations for national minorities, supported by the RA 2013 State Budget. According to a legal act adopted each year, non-governmental organizations of the national minorities use the money to solve problems related to organization of protection of national identity, as well as educational and cultural problems.
