ArmInfo. MP from the "Bright Armenia" faction Gurgen Baghdasaryan at the regular government meeting on September 9 presented the draft amendments to the RA Law "On Subsoil" regarding the disclosure of all owners of mining enterprises, which was not supported by the majority of the parliamentarians of the National Assembly.
According to Baghdasaryan, in Armenia there is a need to disclose 100% of the owners of mining enterprises, whereas today, according to the amendments to the RA Subsoil Law adopted in April 2019, it is possible not to disclose those who have up to 10% of the share of the enterprise. "It should be noted that small shares in the case of large enterprises can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and offshore companies are created for this," he emphasized.
The head of the "Bright Armenia" faction Edmon Marukyan, supporting the project, wondered why those who had previously advocated the unveiling of 100% of the real owners are silent today? "What are we afraid of by avoiding publicity? If the representatives of the authorities, no matter the former or the current ones, own even 1% of the shares we need to know that. We are always talking about a transparent and responsible mining industry, aren't we?!", The MP expressed his discontent.
At the same time, member of the "My Step" party Babken Tunyan noted that while studying international experience in which the permissible limit of non-disclosure of the names of the real owners is 25%, in Armenia a threshold of 10% was chosen. "Let's see what information we get after the names of the real owners are made public, if we find something dubious and feel that it is necessary to lower this threshold, we will certainly review it," he emphasized.
It should be reminded that earlier, RA Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan stated during the meeting of the multi-beneficiary group of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) that active work is underway in Armenia to create a system to disclose the real owners of mining enterprises.
To recall, on March 9, 2017 in the capital of Colombia, Bogota, the application of Armenia for joining the EITI was approved. Thus, the republic became the 52nd country using the global EITI standard. This will lead to transparency in the mining sector and increased accountability to the public. These factors are essential in the context of improving the country's business environment. It should be noted that on the state balance of mineral reserves there are at present more than 670 deposits of solid minerals with confirmed reserves, including 30 metal. To note, EITI is a coalition of government, companies, civil society, investors and international organizations. It was created in 2002 at the initiative of then Prime Minister of Great Britain Tony Blair at the conference on sustainable development in Johannesburg. In 2003, standards were developed and implemented to ensure transparency and accountability. The initiative is to increase transparency and improve the quality of governance in the extractive industries by periodically publishing reports, adhering to standards, and strengthening institutional capacity.