V. Ayvazyan: law against unfair competition or anti-monopoly law?

Law against unfair competition or anti-monopoly law? – member of Armenian parliament, Chairman of the NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs Vardan Ayvazyan asked today at a press conference.

According to him, the whole economy is affected by monopoly. To some extent, the monopoly problem is connected with Armenia’s geographic position, current situation since Armenia has no relations with two of its neighbors, on the other hand, Armenia takes advantage of the conflict and collects much more sums for goods transit.

In return, Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Financial-Credit, Budgetary and Economic Affairs Gagik Minasyan said that Armenia rather needs a law on protection of economic competition than an anti-monopoly law. Economic monopoly is permitted by law in Armenia, however, law bans abuse of monopoly position, according to Minasyan.

Minasyan reported that he presented a draft law against unfair competition to NA proposing transferring to the state budget the whole profit gained from monopoly position abuse. Meanwhile, the government is also preparing a draft law that proposes imposing 5 percent fine instead of 2 percent from the annual circulation of an economic entity committing violations.