MOSCOW AND YEREVAN DISCUSS CHANGING THE BUSINESS LINE OF ARMENIAN ENTERPRISES PASSED TO RUSSIA
ARMINFO News Agency
October 17, 2006 Tuesday
Today, at a press-conference on the results of the session of the
Armenian-Russian interparliamentary commission for cooperation, Vice
Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Vahan Hovhannisyan said that at the
moment, Yerevan and Moscow are discussing the issue of changing the
business line of the Armenian enterprises passed to Russia against
the state dept of Armenia. In his turn, Russian co-chairman of the
commission, member of the Federation Council Nikolay Ryzhkov said that
the launch of the Armenian enterprises will be discussed at the next
session of the commission to be held in Moscow at the beginning of
March. He established the fact that such a profitable enterprise as
"Mars", unfortunately, operates not so efficiently.
Ryzhkov added that the forthcoming session in Moscow will also discuss
the issue of bilateral scientific and technical cooperation.
For this purpose a temporary commission will be created to work
out specific programs on cooperation. As regards today’s session,
Ryzhkov said that the meeting passed in an ingenuous atmosphere, and
the sides sometimes asked not so pleasant questions to one another. It
is quite natural as they come here to solve problems, he said.
Hovhannisyan added that the session discussed the issue of timely
notification of the two countries’ parliaments about the Armenian
and Russian economic laws and decisions as they affect the activity
of the economic entities of the countries. Otherwise the economic
entities are the last to learn about these decisions and they find
themselves in a difficult situation. To prove this, he brought the
example of closing of the "Upper Lars" check-point by Russia. As a
result, Armenian cargoes had to stay on the Russian-Georgian border
for several months. Hovhannisyan said that Armenian economic entities
would be able to find alternative markets for our commodities if Russia
had informed Armenia about the closing of the "Upper Lars" timely.