TCuFP and Legal Committee joint meeting

DateJanuary 12, 2022
Event categoryAdvocacy
Venue Armenia Marriott Hotel Yerevan
On 12 January 2022, AmCham in Armenia held a special Tax, Customs, and Fiscal Policy (TCuFP) and Legal Committee joint meeting in Boardroom, Armenia Marriott Hotel, Yerevan. Ashot Hovanesian, AmCham President; Gagik Gyulbudaghyan, AmCham 2nd Vice-President; Irina Dumanyan (online) and Tigran Jrbashyan from AmCham Board of Directors, 9 members, 6 of them online and AmCham Executive Team participated at the meeting. Levon Altunyan, a special guest was also present online at the discussion. The meeting was chaired by Lusine Mnatsakanyan.
Karine Sarkissian welcomed the participants, thanked them for their interest in the topic and it was suggested focusing on the burning issue of the Comprehensive Health Insurance draft law discussion as a priority.
Lusine Mnatsakanyan presented AmCham TCuFP and Legal Committee’s position regarding the Comprehensive Health Insurance draft law and the participants mentioned a couple of concerns on the topic
Next steps:
 To create a small Working Group (Lusine Mnatsakanyan, Tigran Jrbashyan, Levon Altunyan, Nerses Nersisyan and Suren Ghalumyan) to work on the draft law,
 To prepare a short position paper about the topic and discuss it with the Ministry of Finance
 To organize a joint meeting with other AmCham partner business associations and NGOs to discuss and create a joint single proposal with objections and suggestions about the law and present it to the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Armenia.
 To obtain the relevant policy recommendations from the World Bank
G. Gyulbudaghyan, briefly presented the recent update about the Tax Proposal Special Package that was prepared by the group to promote the return of the Armenian Diaspora to its homeland. Gyulbudaghyan reminded the participants about the meeting with Mr. Hakob Arshakyan, the Vice-President of the National Assembly of RA, who suggested preparing a recommendation paper where the definite objective of the Tax Proposal Special Package and a key result area of the project will be stated clearly.
Next steps:
 It was decided to organize a meeting with Zareh Sinanyan, the High Commissioner of Diaspora Affairs of the RA to prepare the recommendation paper with his advice.
 To organize a meeting with Hakob Arshakyan as soon as the paper with objectives and expected outcomes is ready.
 To change the “bank deposit” advantage in Tax Proposal Special Package to the “deposit in financial tools”
 To have the next meeting as upon a group decision