ArmInfo. Another protest action took place today near the building of the Armenian government. This time, representatives of small and medium-sized businesses, namely importers of clothing and footwear, appealed to the authorities.
The latter argue that without preliminary discussions and warnings, the cost of customs clearance of goods increased 6-fold. Earlier, according to representatives of retail trade, there was a fixed tariff of $ 3.25 per kilogram of things, but now the composition of imported goods also affects the cost of customs clearance.
''We were simply faced with the fact. It is unfair to introduce such changes to the law in the conditions of border closures, when we are already in a difficult situation, when the purchasing power of citizens has decreased three-fold, "complained one of the protesters. Representatives of the trade business unanimously noted that such changes will affect the rise in prices of imported products.
Moreover, the importers stressed that they do not exclude the reasonability of introducing changes, however, such decisions, as the latter noted, should be made taking into account the views of the parties. "Even if they want to increase tariffs in order to protect domestic producers, then let it be a fixed price, and not what is the case today. We are forced to come to their dusty warehouse and open one package after another with a new product in order to write out the composition of each of them as a percentage>, - the participants of the action complained.
It should be noted that following the protest action, the State Revenue Committee of Armenia published explanations on its official Facebook page of what was happening. In particular, the source says that a day earlier, the Deputy Chairman of the State Revenue Committee Shushanik Nersisyan and the head of the Ararat customs office of the department Karen Babayan met with the importers - participants in today's protest action. As a result of the meeting, the parties came to an agreement to hold a working meeting, at which they intend to discuss the problems declared by the business and consider the latest proposals on tariffs. "A little later, the citizens announced that they would refuse the working meeting, instead preferring to hold a protest at the government building," the statement said. However, SRC once again invites business to discussions, as a result of which the parties will try to find solutions to the problem.