On 27 February, the Armenian government approved a set of 49 measures for 2020-2023 designed to improve the country’s business environment, reported arka.am. 

Economy Minister Tigran Khachatryan said the set of measures includes three new indicators: 1) how entrepreneurs cooperate with the government and how they come into contact with public procurements, how transparent, costly and complicated this process is for them; 2) what difficulties the companies encounter when inviting foreign specialists to work; 3) and how supported the contacts with the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition are.

Khachatryan said that some of the measures call for simplifying the registration process for companies, ensuring ease of perception and digitalization of the mechanisms for obtaining a building permit. He also noted that the measures involve the issue of power supply quality, since the industry is highly impacted by power outages and their duration.

The discussion for Armenia’s Business Environment Improvement Program for 2020-2023 began on 11 February. The program heavily relies on the reports issued in the latest World Bank “Doing Business” report. Armenia took the 47th place with an overall score of 74.5 points, which was a drop by 6 places in comparison to the 2019 report (Caucasus Watch reported).