No inaccuracies in WB’s Doing Business 2020 report: Armenia's rating to remain unchanged: WB representative

The World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 report does not contain any inaccuracies, WB's private sector development senior specialist Valentina Saltane said, speaking to the Voice of America, commenting on the statement of Armenia’s Central Bank chairman Arthur Javadyan about inaccuracy in the report the correction of which will lift Armenia from the current 47th to 37th place.

“From our viewpoint there is no inaccuracy or mistake regarding Armenia. This year we have just reviewed and changed the evaluation of investment protection index. We did not add any new element but just made some corrections,” she said.

Saltane said that for having additional points in investment protection a country must have at least 10 private companies selling determining shares in stock market while in Armenia there are only 7 such companies of which only three are private.

“It is not what the government can do easily on its own. It cannot force other companies enter the stock market. This process should happen naturally with the government creating favorable conditions for it by adopting corresponding laws,” the WB representative said.

She also outlined the achievements reached by Armenia during the past year addressed to creation of favorable conditions for doing business in the country.

Among the steps she stressed the improvement of process of getting right for implementation of construction, reforms in tax sector, digitalization of inter-border trade declarations.

“In general, Armenia acts very successfully. Issues in some sectors are mainly agreed with the legislative amendments and time is necessary to feel them,” the WB representative said.

Three of Armenia’s four direct neighbors – Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey - ensure better conditions for doing business than Armenia, while the fourth neighbor - Iran – is ranked the 127th.

The top three in WB’s Doing Report 2020 are the New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. The worst countries for business are Venezuela, Eritrea and Somali.