Armenian president wants more “efficient” work from customs

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
8 Jan 05

[Presenter] The process of delivering earnings to the state budget in
2005 will be tough and the custom administration will have to work
much harder and more efficiently, President Robert Kocharyan told a
meeting with the leadership of the State Customs Committee today.

[Correspondent over video of meeting] During his first meeting with
the leadership of the State Customs Committee this year, President
Robert Kocharyan noted that 2005 would demand more efficient and hard
work from the customs administration. Improvements in the activities
of the custom and tax administrations will be the focus of attention
this year.

[Robert Kocharyan, captioned] I am interested in the following issues,
first, how are you going to implement these tasks?

Second, what reforms will you introduce to make your work more
civilized and productive within the legal framework?

You must remember that your activities should aim at encouraging
businessmen rather than hindering them. I am confident that if all the
legal procedures are observed and standards of the civilized world are
adopted, this will have a very positive impact on businesses.

[Correspondent] The head of state highlighted the importance of the
fight against smuggling and the need for cooperation with the tax
authorities in this area. He stressed that a lack of such cooperation
makes tax evasion and violations possible.

In this context the president spoke of the importance of implementing
as soon as possible, before the end of the first three months, a
methodology for making checks more effective and for improving
internal checks of the custom checkpoints. The president also said
that the presidential oversight board was tasked with undertaking
certain steps in this direction, the results of which would show the
level of effectiveness of monitoring the customs system.

[Robert Kocharyan] The principle of inspections and monitoring should
be the following: the public should be told about the rules of the
game and asked to adhere to these rules. The quantitative index of
your inspections does not mean much by itself. It is necessary to take
one or two cases and follow them up to the end. By looking into every
aspect of the given case it would be possible to find out what is
going on and what mechanisms are being used for that.

[Passage omitted: correspondent recaps the president’s words]

I believe all of you realize there is still much to be done to ensure
that the system works efficiently. A lot depends on you. The fact that
Armenia is 42nd on a list of free market economies which is published
annually, means that a lot is yet to be done. I think we achieved a
lot last year and in the last couple of years. But it is not
enough. All of you must understand that there is still a lot to be
done. We will do it no matter what. But if there are persons who
cannot keep up with the pace of work, then we will continue without
them. There is no other way.

The tax committee and your administration can either kill the economy
or give it a normal boost. This year is going to be an important one
in terms of improving the customs and tax systems.

[Correspondent] At the end of the meeting President Kocharyan ordered
relevant officials to provide him with a precise timetable of measures
for resolving the problems raised at the meeting.

Lilit Setrakyan, Vartan Petrosyan, “Aylur”.