Excise tax for carbonated drinks to grow: Aware and Protected Consumer NGO chairman

The excise tax will go up for all kinds of carbonated drinks (except for mineral water), chairman of Aware and Protected Consumer NGO Babken Pipoyan said, speaking to Aysor.am.

“First they were planning to raise the excise tax for drinks with sugar but now they seem to raise the tax for all the carbonated drinks,” the advocate of consumers’ rights said.

He said the prices for drinks with sugar may be raised with the positive conclusion of the health minister resulting in reduction of its consumption.

Pipoyan said this policy will result in the price growth by 40 AMD per liter which will cause 20% price growth in the market.

The NGO chairman said as a result the low quality so-called natural juices will become an alternative but as far as they concede in their quality, there will just be reduction of consumption which will not ensure the expected budget entries which the raise of excise tax is aimed at.

He said as a result the social-economic situation will worsen as for some group this product will be unavailable.

“This is a regular decision without wide discussions and calculation of consequences,” he said.