The Government of the Republic of Armenia

Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan chaired a regular meeting of the Economic Regulatory Framework Reform Council, held today in the Office of Government.

The meeting was also attended by representatives from National Center for Legislative Regulation (NCLR) partner organizations - OSCE, UNDP, World Bank, as well as the EU and International Monetary Fund.

NCLR Director Armen Yeghiazaryan introduced the reforms due in the field entrepreneurship. In particular, it was proposed to replace the licenses granted to trade venue operators, vodka importers and precious metal assaying and hallmarking entities with the requirement of mandatory notifications sent to the authorized body.

Another suggestion was made to simplify the procedures and reduce the permit granting deadlines for the export of dual-purpose goods and their transit through the territory of the Republic of Armenia. The Ministry of Economy was proposed to introduce a system of online submission of permit bids and notifications.

It was next suggested to amend the law on advertising, according to which the sentence “ban with a duration of over 14 minutes per hour during a TV or radio broadcast” should be substituted with the following sentence “it is prohibited to broadcast on television or radio over 14 minute-long advertisements within 1 airing hour,” which means the advertising period will be limited to 14 minutes per hour.

The NCLR also proposed to streamline the procedure to be followed in holding and funding innovation project competitions in order to specify evaluation criteria, set clear-cut deadlines and tender application forms.

The aforementioned recommendations have been reviewed in the light of the EU directives, the Customs Code of the Customs Union, as well as the know-how available in Great Britain, Ireland, Georgia, Lithuania, Estonia, Jordan, Poland, Russia, the USA and Ukraine. Note that these proposals and recommendations will lead to AMD1bn-worth savings in business process-related costs.