Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited “Enterprise Armenia” Investment Support Center to participate in the discussion of the activity report 2023 of the structure.
General Director of “Enterprise Armenia” Levon Ohanesyan and representatives of the center reported on the works carried out during the reporting period.
During 2023, the works carried out by “Enterprise Armenia” in the directions of accompanying foreign and local investors in the process of making investments, post-investment service of foreign investors operating in Armenia, promotion of Armenia’s investment opportunities and attraction of new foreign investments were presented to the Prime Minister.
In particular, it was noted that more than 410 foreign and Armenian investors applied to the center during 2023. More than 140 investment initiatives have been worked on, of which 60 were attracted in 2023 alone. In the reporting year, 24 new investment projects were launched with the support of the Fund, the estimated investment volume of which is about 800 million USD. According to officials, since the establishment of the Center in 2020, a total of 51 investment projects have been launched with the support of the latter, the volume of which reaches 1 billion 140 million USD.
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The Prime Minister inquired how and through what measures the center helped the investors. Those in charge noted that the center supported in the solution of all administrative issues, including receiving construction permits.
In response to Nikol Pashinyan’s question if this means that the investors did not deal with these issues and did not turn to other circles, the officials said, “They didn’t communicate with other circles at all, we dealt with all the issues.”
The Prime Minister emphasized that principle and noted. “The ideology here is that potential investors do not come into contact with other circles. In other words, the meaning of that “one stop shop” is that the investor comes, gets service, the center should communicate with at least 100 institutions, contact with those 100 institutions, perform that function.”
It was also reported that the center currently provides post-investment service to 166 companies, 51 of which started working with them last year. Those companies operate in high technology, services, manufacturing and other sectors.
Prime Minister Pashinyan emphasized the need to present the necessary information for investors on one platform. “For an investor, one piece of information is here, one piece of information there, one piece of information in the third place, one piece of information in the fourth place. In other words, if we can use the capabilities of the geoportal, make it available so that the potential investor will get more information he needs from there: what property is for sale, is there a road nearby or not, are there electricity lines or not…? There has to be some way, maybe the geoportal is the right place where all that information comes and intersects with each other so that access increases.”
Reference was made to the activities aimed at promoting the investment field, which include investment forums, business forums, including abroad.
It was reported that the new website of “Enterprise Armenia” was established, where there is detailed information in different languages about the possibilities of making investments in Armenia and providing support to investors.
Nikol Pashinyan also referred to the legislative proposals presented by the center regarding systemic problems and asked how many of them have already become legal regulations.
It was noted that there are two such legal acts. One referred to the “Amendment to the Law on Foreigners” and the other to the “Infrastructures for Investments” state support program. It was noted that in the initially developed project, it was envisaged that the investor should submit a bank guarantee for the volume of the entire investment expected by him, the guarantee should be submitted attached to the application. According to the new proposal, the investor must submit the guarantee after the approval of the government’s decision, and it must be in the amount of the infrastructure.
The Prime Minister also got acquainted with the work planned in 2024 in the direction of promotion of Armenia as a country distinguished by its investment attractiveness, attraction of foreign direct investments and digitization of services provided by the center. It was informed that it is planned to establish a regional investment digital map-portal, a comparative portal of socio-economic indices and ratings. An artificial intelligence tool will also be introduced to serve the beneficiaries through the website.
INFORMATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT OF THE OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
