ARMENIAN PREMIER SAYS TAX AND CUSTOMS OFFICERS SHOULD ABANDON OLD WORKING METHODS

ARKA
May 16, 2008

YEREVAN, May 16. /ARKA/. Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargssyan
said Armenian tax and customs officers should no longer use their
old working methods.

"The priority task is to overcome the psychological complex of tax
and customs officers. They must learn to work with new methods giving
up the old ones, including those with direct business involvement,"
Sargssyan said at a meeting of premier-affiliated Business Support
Council.

When tax and customs officers come to a mutually beneficial agreement
with businessmen, it is then the government that suffers most.

"This psychological complex should be overcome which is quite a
difficult task" Sargssyan said. The government is going to toughen
the punishment for abuses meanwhile sharply raising the salaries paid
to the employees of these services.

A social package ensuring a long-term job and high salary will
be suggested to the employees, the premier said. "It is much more
preferable to have a stable and long-term job than jeopardize their
jobs and succumb to temptations," the premier emphasized.

Among other participants of the meeting were Vahram Barseghyan,
Chief of the State Tax Service and Acting Chairman of the State Tax
Committee, Ashot Shahnazaryan, Chairman of the State Commission
for Economic Competition Protection, as well as AEPLAC Armenia
Office Director, EBRD Armenia Office Director, Chairman of the
Armenian-Canadian Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Chairman
of the NKR Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen, Armenian
businessmen and representatives of different associations and public
organizations.