“There are predictions that the state of the economy will worsen. There are issues in terms of working resources and employees, as well as with motivation. A large portion of the population is wondering about whether or not they should stay in Armenia, and in conjunction with that, whether or not they should find jobs,” the director of the SME Cooperation Association, Ruben Osipyan, told reporters regarding the post-war economic situation after a session of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Economic Affairs in which small and medium business representatives also participated.
“We need to look at the situation realistically. Our position is that we are trying to find one person to blame for this situation. People are trying to put the blame on others. There were mistakes in all areas. In the past, people believed that the state needed to support businesses that are barely surviving. In my opinion, we need to change our target, and we need to support effective, intelligent, profitable, and exportable businesses so that the situation in the market changes. These types of businesses need to serve as examples for others. Armenia has and is a country of opportunities. There are many things that we haven’t done, and we need to use the successes of other countries to be successful in Armenia,” Osipyan said.
According to Ruben Osipyan, if not registering employees and evading taxes was a pattern, then it needs to now become unacceptable even at the household level. “If companies refuse to register their employees, the employee needs to inform the labor inspectorate.”
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Osipyan also expressed the hope that there will be continuous meetings with the committee. “This was our sixth meeting, which is very bad. This should have at least been our 26th meeting. No meetings were held over the past 1.5-2 years, perhaps for subjective or objective reasons. We agreed that we would meet every month.”
Luiza Sukiasyan
