Armenia Is Expected To Be Granted Status Of Free Market Economy By L

ARMENIA IS EXPECTED TO BE GRANTED STATUS OF FREE MARKET ECONOMY BY LATE 2006

Noyan Tapan
Sept 07 2006

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 7, NOYAN TAPAN. It is expected that Armenia will be
granted status of a free market economy by late 2006. The RA Deputy
Minister of Trade and Economic Development Tigran Davtian told NT
correspondent about it.

According to him, the required voluminous package of documents
necessary for being granted the indicated status has already been
submitted to the appropriate bodies of the European Union, and this
package is now under consideration.

T. Davtian said that Armenia is "one of the first countries in the
queue" to receive status of a free market economy. He noted that
the European commission promised to consider the issue of granting
status to Armenia until late 2006. "In my opinion, we’ll receive a
positive answer by the end of this year, otherwise – by early 2007
as the negotiations on the documents submitted are proceeding quite
well, and there is mutual confidence between the two sides that the
problem of Armenia’s status will be solved," he underlined. The deputy
minister said that only two CIS countries have the status of a free
market economy.