3RD ANNUAL "WITHOUT-TIE" MEETING-FORUM OF ICT LEADERS HELD IN DILIJAN

Noyan Tapan

Dec 8, 2008

DILIJAN, DECEMBER 8, NOYAN TAPAN. "The Tax and Customs Legislation and
Administration Reforms", "The Global Financial Crisis: The Strategy
of Behaviour in the Crisis Situation", "The Principles of Electronic
Governance in Armenia" round tables were included in the agenda of
the 3rd annual "withou-tie" meeting-forum of ICT leaders held in
Dilijan on December 6-7.

This time the event was organized by the Union of IT Enterprises of
Armenia (UITE). More than 80 representatives of Armenian ICT companies,
NGOs, this sector’s state governance and regulation bodies, the
Central Bnak of Armenia (CBA) and commercial banks, the State Revenue
Committee adjunct to the RA government, Ericsson company (Sweden),
the IT department of Georgian ministry of finance, and USAID Business
Environment Reforms Program in Georgia took part in the meeting-forum.

During the round table on the subject "The Tax and Customs Legislation
and Administration Reforms", the deputy head of Taxpayer Servicing and
Taxation Procedures Deparment of the State Revenue Committee Armen
Tamazian presented the package of amendments and additions to tax
legislation to take effect starting from January 1, 2009, while the
head of the Committee’s Customs Control Department Albert Harutyunian
presented the amendments to customs legislation. They gave explanations
to the issues raised by businessmen and the proposals made by them. One
proposal of the UITE was related to making an amendment to the Law on
Value Added Tax because ICT companies cannot donate morally outdated
computers in good state without paying a value added tax.

Discussing the issues raised and proposals made at the round table
"The Global Financial Crisis: The Strategy of Behaviour in the Crisis
Situation", the RA minister of economy Nerses Yeritsian explained
that there are no problems with attraction of organizational and
financial resources for development of programs on overcoming the
challenges of the crisis: the business community just has to develop
these programs on confronting the crisis in a rapid and efficient way,
and the state will support the programs in some way or other.

During the round table "The Principles of Electronic Governance
in Armenia" held on the second day of the meeting-forum, the
representatives of Ericsson presented the technological solutions
of e-governance systems, while the Georgian guests spoke about the
experience gained in e-governance sector and the experience of the
e-trade systems in their country. The annual turnover of e-trade
makes about 20 million dollars a year in Georgia.