Armenian parliament did not support the draft amendments to the Law  "On Subsoil" regarding the disclosure of 100% of real owners

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.