YEREVAN, December 17, /ARKA/. World Bank (WB) Yerevan Office head Aristomene Varoudakis warned today that lack of diversity was one of the biggest threats to Armenian economy.
He said an economy lacking diversity and relying heavily on two sectors- construction and mining sector is threatened.
He said the World Bank highlighted this problem and the need for raising Armenia’s competitiveness and creation of an investor-friendly environment in all its reports.
He said if no serious changes are enforced to facilitate the procedure of tax payment and raise the competitiveness it would be very difficult to secure a normal functioning of the economy.
He said diversification of the economy is impossible without reaching a zero corruption level in tax and customs sector and without elimination of oligopoly.
The latter, he said is not a technical question. It needs vesting broader authorities in the anti-trust body and demonstration of political will on part of the authorities to make transparent links between government officials and some businessmen and rule out clash of interests, which can be seen presently in the public sector, since very often government officials run their won businesses.
He said also the government plans to develop a law on detecting business-interests of officials and strengthen the system of income statements. -0-
