MEETING WITH DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER OF RA MR. MHER GRIGORYAN

Ashot Hovanesian, President, AmCham in Armenia joined the meeting online. AmCham Board of Directors, Committee Chairs and Gold member companies’ directors were present at the meeting. The Deputy Prime Minister, as well as all the Deputy Ministers of the Government, the Central Bank representative were participating in the meeting from the public sector. The meeting was mediated by Ms. Aneta Babayan, Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister.

Mr. Grigoryan welcomed all the participants of the meeting and gave the floor to AmCham representatives, whereas Mr. Hovanesian greeted the public sector representatives and briefly represented the AmCham strategic framework vision.

All the Committee Chairs introduced their committees and the projects under the framework of those committees. Ms. Elina Markaryan, Vice president and the Chair of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods Committee (FMCG) talked about the Sustainable Waste Management project and the challenges. Mr. Gagik Gyulbudaghyan, Vice President AmCham introduced the Diaspora Tax Privileges Special Package prepared by the AmCham Tax, Customs and Fiscal Policy Committee experts. Ms. Lusine Mnatsakanyan, Chair, AmCham Legal IPR Committee presented the Comprehensive Health Insurance initiative, where AmCham together with nearly 10 other NGOs and associations elaborated a position paper with recommendations and pre-steps suggested to the Ministry of Health and other relevant stakeholders prior to the policy implementation. Mr. Valentine, Chair, Worforce Development Committee talked about the Workforce Development initiative of the Chamber in cooperation with the USAID Armenia WF Development project, and Mr. Kalantaryan, Chair, Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection briefly represented the Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection Committee of AmCham and its plans.

Mr. Grigoryan welcome the efforts of the AmCham members and stressed the importance of establishing public-private dialogue effective mechanisms, as well as expressed readiness to support AmCham as much as its plans are aligned with the government strategic vision. It was agreed that AmCham Committees will be working with the relevant Government stakeholders to finalize the Policy recommendations and to bring them into action.

The discussion was overall productive with further cooperation and follow-up with the relevant government stakeholders on the initiated projects.