Today, the maximum buying rates at commercial banks of Yerevan were 416 drams for 1 dollar, 543drams for 1 EUR and 13,2 drams for 1 Russian ruble. The minimum selling rates stood at 417 drams for 1 dollar, 546,5 drams for 1 EUR and 13,2 drams for 1 Russian ruble. 

 Ernst & Young CJSC has announced the launch of the 2013 Compensation & Benefits Survey in Armenia, the company's Marketing Service told ArmInfo.

In 2013, general and specialized industry reports will be issued based on the Compensation & Benefits Survey Report. Similar to previous years, the Survey Report will consist of two parts. One part will cover salary information, including monthly and annual fixed pay as well as annual variable compensation, a description of the compensation structure for each job presented in the Report and actual (current) and planned salary changes in percentage terms. The other part will provide detailed information on HR policies used by the surveyed companies, such as salary arrangements and structure of cash compensation, working time arrangements, social allowances, business travel policies, employee motivation programs and non-cash
benefits, recruitment policy, training and development, HR agenda and development plans and other issues related to HR policies.

Subject to data sufficiency, salary data will be presented by regions (marzes).  It is planned that the final Survey Report will be issued by the end of September 2013.  Upon request, Survey Reports for particular industries can be provided by a sooner date.  Specialized industry reports will include remuneration data for industry-specific jobs, as well as information regarding benefits and HR policies and practices specific to the selected industry, such as financial services and banking,  IT and telecom, pharmaceuticapharmaceutical, FMCGl and other industries. Issuance of specialized industry reports will be subject to participation of at least seven companies from the selected industry.

By data of Ernst & Young, in 2012, the number of companies which participated in the Compensation and Benefits Survey in Armenia increased to 40 Armenian and international companies from various industries. In addition to the general industry report, specialized industry reports were issued for the financial services and banking sector as well as the pharmaceutical industry involving 14 and 7 companies, respectively. The final Report provided salary data on 114 cross-industry jobs for general industry, 128 positions for the financial services and banking sector and 6 positions for the
pharmaceutical sector. A wide spectrum of information on HR policies and practices in Armenia was also included.

Despite the fact that the majority of the surveyed companies had no plans to change the number of personnel in the next year, 38% of the companies planned to increase, and only 7% planned to reduce staff in 2013. With respect to external indicators used as a base of salary changes, similar to prior years, market data on the actual level of salaries remains the most popular indicator, followed by the inflation rate and cost of living index.  Finally, regarding HR priorities, the results showed that companies highlight the importance of performance evaluation & management, motivation & retention of employees as well as training & development as the most important HR issues for the next 12 months.

 "The results of the surveys prove the market to have been gradually Activating. Many companies  in the Armenian market have been introducing and  improving employee motivation systems,  non-cash benefit packages and increasingly using short-term and long-term incentive plans, etc," says Eric Hayrapetyan, Ernst & Young Yerevan Office Leader. 

Ernst & Young conducts the Compensation and Benefits Survey, as well as a number of other surveys, annually in nearly all CIS countries.

Hundreds of companies are involved in General industry surveys, specialized industry surveys (banking, insurance, FMCG, logistics, pharmaceutical, IT, Telecom, non-profit organizations, etc.), customized surveys (key market players, top management surveys, foreign employees, regional surveys) and other surveys. According to Ernst & Young's management, the main reasons for the popularity of the surveys are the volatility of the labor market and growing demand of companies for reliable market data on compensation levels. In Armenia ,the company has been conducting the given surveys for
already 4 years. 

Ernst & Young is a global leader in assurance, tax, transactions and advisory services. The company's team of 167,000 people are united by shared values and an unwavering commitment to quality.  The company's 19 offices in the post-Soviet space comprise 4000 specialists.  The company entered the Armenian market in 1999 and intensified activity in 2008 when EY Yerevan joined the CIS sub-region.

Idram payment system operator launched its own cash registers at Yerevan City supermarkets, Narek Vardanyan, Head of the Development Department of Idram LLC, said at today's press conference. 

He said that the Idram cash registers allow making financial transactions in one place without any time restrictions: these are international money transfers, utility payments, redemption of loans, and other financial operations. The cash registers operate every day until midnight.

"The internetization level of Armenia is still rather low, and Armenia badly needs a universal service of payment acceptance. The decision to launch cash registers at Yerevan City supermarkets is conditioned by the fact that they operate round the clock and have a wide geographical location, which will increase the availability of our services for the population", he said. Vardanyan added that similar cash registers will be launched at 8 municipal establishments of Yerevan. The total number of the Idram cash registers installed is 12, 4 of them - at Yerevan City supermarkets. The company is going to launch cash registers at all Yerevan City supermarkets and in the regions as well.

For his part, David Martirosyan, Head of the Marketing and Cards of the Yerevan City trade chain, said that when making use of the Idram cash register services, the holders of the Yerevan City bonus cards will receive a bonus from each payment. The cardholders may spend the accumulated bonuses on shopping.  One bonus is equal to 1 AMD. "From now on our customers have an opportunity to accumulate bonuses not only from purchase payment, but also from utility payments, money transfers and loan redemption", he said.

Idram LLC was founded on 8 May 2008. On 29 December 2009 the company was licensed by the Central Bank of Armenia to make money transfers, and on 3 March 2012 - to issue Idram e-money. The key directions of the activity are payment acceptance real-time and online, implementation of international money transfers, payments for utility and mobile services, redemption of loans, taxes and fines, insurance, e-commerce, exchange of online currency. The company cooperates with Coinstar, BLIZKO, Webmoney, Yandex.money, 2pay.ru. Idram provides and opportunity to make express payments via a PC or a mobile telephone connected to the Internet. The system has 60 thsd users, 6 thsd of them are active.

Head of the Catholicos Hovhannes Odznetsi Foundation, Vanush Shermazanyan, advocates raising no scandal around restoration of the St. Mary Church of Odzun (Lori region).

He said at today's press conference that the media reports saying that the restoration of the church has been suspended have nothing to do with the reality. According to the media reports, the reason of suspension was the fact that Architect Misha Hakobyan, the author of restoration project, allegedly refused  to control the process of restoration because he had not received the 450 thsd AMD he was to receive for 3 months. 

Shermazanyan said that over the three months of 2013 no restoration work was carried out, as this work cannot be done at the temperature below 8 degrees. He said that one should not pay for the work that was not done. Shermazanyan added that the problem was restricted not to Misha Hakobyan but to Servet LLC, which was carrying out the follow-on. Thus, there are no obstacles for continuing the restoration work launched in April, except the lack of control over the compliance of the repair and restoration work with the reference design.      

To note, the St. Mary Church of Odzun (VI c.) is being restored according to the Memorandum signed in summer 2012 between the Armenian Apostolic Church, Armenian Culture Ministry and the Catholicos Hovhannes Odznetsi Foundation. The total project costs 320 mln AMD. The restoration will be completed in October 2014.

 In 2012 the division of fight against IT crimes of the General Department of Fight against Organized Crime of the Police of Armenia, initiated the proceedings of 40 criminal cases, and 22 criminal cases have already been instituted this year, Senior Lieutenant Andrey Yashchyan, senior specialist at the specified division, said at today's press conference.

In the meantime, he said that the cyber crimes, particularly, illegal economic activity by means of computer equipment and the Internet, fell in number over the past few years.

He said that in real life there are actually no cases of blackmailing offences in Armenia, while such crimes with the use of computer technologies have become more frequent. For instance, in 2012 a user of the "Odnoklassniki" social network opened a pseudonymous account and demanded 250 thsd AMD (nearly 599 USD) from another citizen, threatening to disseminate compromising information about her. It turned out that at the moment of the crime, the criminal was serving a sentence at a penitentiary and earlier had made blackmailing offences against several persons. Yashchyan added that the logins and passwords of 50 "Odnoklassniki" users were stolen and fake pages were created.

The policeman said that when committing cyber thieveries, the criminals take over the e-correspondence of the business partners by changing the details and invoices so that the funds are transferred to the criminals' accounts. In one of such cases the damage of the victim totaled $134 thsd. The international chain of the 5- 6 cyber thieveries fixed by the Department, included not only Armenia, but also China, Japan and other countries. The victims of the cyber thieveries were also individuals - customers of foreign e-stores, who did not receive the goods they had paid for.

Yashchyan said that in order to detect the international cyber crimes, the Department has the Point of Contact of 24/7 G-8 and the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, to which 60 countries have joined. He advises using protected internet resources that use Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, inform nobody of the credit card data, using difficult passwords in order to avoid cyber crimes.

The position expressed by the first President of Armenia, leader of the newly- created Armenian National Congress Party Levon Ter-Petrosyan during the ANC's constituent congress raises eyebrows, to put it mildly, Eduard Sharmazanov, Spokesperson of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and Vice Speaker of Armenian Parliament, told ArmInfo. To note, during the congress, Ter-Petrosyan assessed the ongoing political processes in
the country.    

Sharmazanov is first of all bewildered at Levon Ter-Petrosyan's criticism against the other opposition leader Raffi Hovannisian and his actions. "I'd like to know what Levon Ter-Petrosyan means by the word combination "political processes" and what "political" actions he expected from Raffi Hovannisian. In 2008 Levon Ter-Petrosyan had an opportunity to carry out "political processes", but we all know what it developed into", said Sharmazanov.

When commenting on the ANC leader's statement that Gagik Tsarukyan, leader of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) is actually trying to "shoot a way" out of the power camp and "move" to the opposition field, Sharmazanov said that this statement is also frustrating. "According to all political standards, the best evidence of competence and opposition nature of any political force is its participation in the main political process of the country -
presidential election - with an alternative program, however, the PAP failed to do that. As regards the statement that today the PAP is fighting with the authorities at the elections to the Yerevan Elders' Council, it is simply unserious, as these are not the elections to decide the fate of the state, and one should not mislead the electorate with such statements. An economy entity will be elected during the May 5 elections to manage the capital of Armenia as effectively as possible", he said.

Aeroflot and Siberia Airlines have reduced the air ticket prices to Yerevan after the bankruptcy of Armavia, the national air carrier. 

The website of the General Department of Civil Aviation of Armenia says that the Yerevan-Moscow- Yerevan tickets of Aeroflot have dropped in price by 21.4% from 203,292 AMD (economy class ticket) as of 2 April 2013 to 159,860 AMD as of April 9. It is noteworthy that Aeroflot increased the prices right after the bankruptcy launch has been announced: as of 31 March 2013 the price was 187,158 AMD, which is by 14.6% higher than the current price. (Armavia announced the launch of bankruptcy and suspension of flights on 1 April 2013).

Siberia Airlines' prices of Yerevan-Moscow-Yerevan tickets have dropped from 15.7% to 187,993 AMD to 158,510 AMD.

The press service of the General Department of Civil Aviation was unable to explain the price reduction for ArmInfo's correspondent. The Armenian offices of Russian air companies also failed to comment on that.  

To note, Armavia made flights to 28 destinations and had a sole right to some of the flights. The bankruptcy of the company was conditioned by the deteriorating financial condition of the company. In 2010 the company's loss totaled $7 mln. The data for 2011 have not been published, but specialists estimate Armavia's debt at over $50 mln. (As of 15 April 2013, the exchange rate of the Central Bank of Armenia was 417.40 AMD/1USD).

Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center has started collecting signatures for a petition to make public the lists of those who voted during the Feb 18 presidential election.

For this purpose the National Assembly should adopt Electoral Code amendments allowing transparency of voters' lists.

"This will be a chance for the authorities to prove their legitimacy and to restore people's confidence in elections. The lists should be placed on the Internet so voters could monitor the electoral process," they in the Center say.

One should wait for no power change in Armenia till 21 September 2015, the leader of the "National security" party, Garnik Isagulyan, said at today's
press-conference, but did not want to explain why he mentioned just this date.

"At first sight, it seems that political life is roiling in the country, but actually everything is calm and will not result in upheavals. And if over the next two years the revolution does not happen from bellow, it will never happen from above", - the politician said.

He also added that Raffi Hovannisian's movement  and the Heritage party cannot make the president tender his resignation. "Taking into consideration the 9 April events one can say that Hovannisian's movement has been gradually slowing down, as actually the people followed not Hovannisian but the head of the Police Vladimir Gasparyan", - he said and added that thanks to Gasparyan no serious clash happened between the policemen and participants in the rally. This prevented repetition of the 1 March 2008 events.

 Parliamentarian from Prosperous Armenia Party, candidate for Yerevan Mayor Vartan Oskanian is for proportional development of Yerevan. Oskanian writes on his Facebook page that there are over two Yerevans: small center, big center, other administrative districts and their outskirts. 

All them differ from each other, especially there is big difference between the small center and the outskirts of Yerevan. Equal and overall development of Yerevan is a priority at present. Yerevan must be developed on the principle from Outskirts to the Center and not from the Center to Outskirts. I think it is necessary to seriously study creation of centers, "Abovyan and Tumanyan streets," for administrative districts of Yerevan. This approach will change the people's expectations, increase possibilities, unload the Center and create new values in other districts in the city, Oskanian writes. 

The parliamentarian considers it inadmissible that domestic problems of the residents of the city outskirts have not been settled yet. This is a result of the years-long indifference and dishonesty of the city authorities.

"People do not want much. They just demand water, electric power, normal roads and uninterrupted transport communications, goods schools and kindergartens," the parliamentarian writes.

Chief of the Visa and Passport Department of the Police of Armenia Hovhannes Kocharyan has urged people not to panic about Russia's possible decision to ban entry for CIS citizens having no foreign passports.

He told ArmInfo on Monday that the biometric passport system launched in Armenia on June 1 2012 is designed to solve this problem. "That's exactly why we are advising our citizens to replace their ordinary passports with biometric ones. If they do, they will have no problems even if Russia adopts such a decision," Kocharyan said.


 

The new Cabinet will be formed after elections to the Elders' Council of Yerevan, Garnik Isagoulyan, Leader of National Security Party, former advisor of the Armenian president for national security affairs, told media, Monday. He ruled out possibility of the prime minister's replacement. 

He said that the Republican Party of Armenia is decisive to win the upcoming elections and has directed all its resources to achieve that goal. Isagoulyan said that the other forces running to the Elders' Council of Yerevan will just overcome the 6% threshold and receive places at the Elders' Council of Yerevan. He thinks that Heritage Party Leader Raffi Hovannisian's high rating will not have any impact on the rating of his Barev Yerevan bloc. The bloc will get approximately as many votes as Heritage Party received at the past parliamentary elections.

"If the Heritage party pursued only change of power, it should not have run to the Elders' Council. It should have supported the force having more chances for victory," he said.

Prosperous Armenia, Orinats Yerkir, the Republican Party of Armenia, the Armenian National Congress, ARFD, Mission and Barev Yerevan will run for 65 seats in Yerevan's Elders Council on May 5. The election campaign kicked off on Apr 7.

Unification of Raffi Hovannisian's movement, Sardarat Movement, and Armenian National Congress would become a response to the challenges and problems Armenia is facing now, Ashot Manucharyan, former advisor of the first president of Armenia for national security, a member of the Karabakh Committee, told media, Monday.

He said that the Armenian people are most likely to follow the above opposition forces and their fragmentation is inadmissible. Manucharyan said that as long as a political force or a politician in both the opposition and the government care for its position, money and power, that force or politician will just play in the hands of "the current system" which is extremely destructive for the country. He thinks that the number of Armenians residing in Russia is higher than the population of Armenia. The USA and Canada together will also outstrip Armenia. Population outflow is a national disaster for Armenia, Manucharyan said.

As regards the incidents of April 9 in the Baghramyan Ave, the politician said that something that rejected the current course of life happened that day, but no new model of governance has been created.  "Being categorically against representative democracy I offered Raffi Hovannisian to create a system of direct democracy. I offered setting up civil assembly headquarters in the regions to mobilize the public and exert the necessary pressure on the authorities," he said.

Manucharyan thinks that if the people do not go to the streets, anyone on the post of the president will be just head of the regional office of the world capital that "killed Muammar Gaddafi for disobeying."

 An independent member of Board of Directors of Ameriabank, Robert von Rekowsky, will arrive in Armenia on 19 April for business meetings and sharing experience  with businessmen. He occupies the position of vice-president of Emerging Markets Strategy and the portfolio manager of Fidelity
Investments company and has got more then 23 years of experience in international assets management.

As press-service of Ameriabank reported, Robert von Rekowsky is going to use his experience in Armenia. He hopes to be useful to Ameriabank in the context of introduction of the best experience and knowledge on the corporative management and business potential.

Robert von Rekowsky with over 23 years of experience in global asset management is a vice-president at Emerging Markets Strategy, which supports the emerging market equity/debt teams and portfolio manager for Fidelity Investments. Robert currently manages several institutional and retail emerging market equity funds for U.S. and Canadian investors.

Robert joined Fidelity's fixed-income division in 1989. In 1995, he moved along with the emerging markets debt group into the company's high-income division as a sovereign debt analyst. Robert continued in that role while working out of Fidelity's London office from 1996 to mid-1998, when he moved into European equity research. From mid-1998 to 2002, Robert split his time as a research analyst between emerging and pan-European equities and he acted as sector leader for emerging markets in London.

>From 2002 to 2004, Robert was an associate fund manager for the emerging markets funds, responsible for the EMEA region. In 2004, Robert relocated to Boston to assume responsibility for Fidelity's global emerging market equity funds, which currently total $4.0 billion in assets.

Today ARF "Dashnaktiutyun" cannot be considered a true opposition, as earlier it was a member of the ruling coalition and was taking part in formation of the present destructive for Armenia system in this or that way, ex-adviser of the  first president of Armenia, Ashot Manucharyan, said at today's press-conference when replying to Arminfo correspondent's question.

"Like a political force, ARFD has its own electorate and a certain number of its supporters, but it has no background to come forward like the opposition", - Manucharyan said.

He thinks that Prosperous Armenia Party is one of the pillars of the oligarch system of Armenia. He said that to become a serious political force PAP should get rid of its leader Gagik Tsarukyan and former foreign minister of Armenia Vartan Oskanian and the "second oligarch", whose interests Oskanian presents. Asked if he means Robert Kocharyan when saying the "second oligarch", Manucharyan replied: "I said what I wanted to say".

Today, the maximum buying rates at commercial banks of Yerevan were 416 drams for 1 dollar, 543drams for 1 EUR and 13,3 drams for 1 Russian ruble. The minimum selling rates stood at 417,5 drams for 1 dollar, 546,5 drams for 1 EUR and 13,3 drams for 1 Russian ruble. 

 The signatures collection under the initiative "To adopt a bill on criminalizing of Armenian genocide denial - NOW!" continues in France.

The signatures collection was initiated by the French Cultural Union "Hayastan", which called on President of France Francois Hollande to keep his promise and adopt a bill on criminalizing of the Armenian genocide denial,  Nouvelles d'Armenie reported.

"Hayastan" organization will send the motion with signatures to the Elysee Palace on 24 April. "We call on President of France Francois Hollande to keep his promises and come forward with a new bill on criminalizing of the Armenian genocide denial NOW!", - the motion says, in particular.

To note, Foreign Minister of France, Loran Fabius, when meeting his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, said in particular, that France is for the beginning of the new stage of negotiations on Turkey's joining the European Union.

To note, the bill on criminalizing of the Armenian genocide denial was adopted by the French Senate in 2012. But later the Constitutional Court of France recognized the bill like contradicting the Constitution and annulled it.

 Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson for protracted conflicts, Ambassador Andrii Deshchytsia starts his visit to the South Caucasus.

Azerbaijani mass media report that Andrii Deshchytsia is currently in Baku. He is expected to meet with Defense Minister of Azerbaijan Safar Abiyev, representatives of the President's Administration, and Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov. The negotiations for peaceful resolution of the Karabakh conflict, and preparations for the visit of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara, to the South Caucasus in June 2013 will be discussed at the meeting.  Andrii Deshchytsia will visit Georgia on April 15-16 and then Armenia on April 16-17.

 "The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the main threat to the security of the region and Azerbaijan.  The fact that the conflict remains unsolved affects the entire region," said the President Ilham Aliyev at the first international meeting of MGIMO, which opened in Baku, Turan reported.

He stressed the need to resolve the conflict on the basis of international law.  "There are internationally recognized legal norms that dictate a solution to the conflict, namely the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan must be restored, and all the territories under occupation, the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the area around it should be returned to its owner under international law. The territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is recognized by the entire international community, and should be restored without any conditions," said Aliyev.

Azerbaijan wants to give an additional impetus to the negotiating process.However, "the delaying tactics of the opposite side is hopeless." "Today it is difficult to compete or quarrel with Azerbaijan, but in the future it will be impossible. Therefore, the involved side should be interested in early settlement of the conflict based on the principles of international law, the Helsinki Final Act, the decisions and resolutions of international organizations. And among them, of course, first of all, I would like to note four UN Security Council resolutions calling for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian occupying forces from our territory. Unfortunately, these resolutions adopted 20 years ago, are not fulfilled, and we have faced another manifestation, an element of double standards," said Aliyev.

At the same time, he pointed out that "in some cases, the resolution of the Security Council is executed within a few hours." "In our case, however, for 20 years, these resolutions are only on paper. It does not add credibility to the Security Council and the UN as a whole," said Aliyev.

"Sometimes when we hear from the stands the term "international community", those who say it mean some regional organizations that do not have a large number of members.

The international community is the United Nations Organization; the international community is all we and all countries. This is not a club of the most developed or selected countries, and it is we all. We all are equal, all have equal rights according to the laws of nature and the laws of international law," said Aliyev.

Baku. On April 12 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed an order on "On additional measures to accelerate socio-economic development in Sabirabad."