Karen Karapetyan voices opinion regarding SCPEC decision on Yerevan Beer Charging

ArmInfo. Armenian Government  head Karen Karapetyan called out for the State Commission for the  Protection of Economic Competition and its Chairman Artak Shaboyan    to pay attention to the market of essentials. 

"The Commission is an independent body, and the Government has no  tools to affect it. But this is not an obstacle for us to express our  opinion," the Prime Minister stated. Based on that, Karapetyan  appealed to SCPEC and its Chairman to lead their efforts first to the  market of essentials. According to Karapetyan, this is a more serious  aspect than beer processing, where  the number of  manufacturers is  high and  essential competition exists.

To remind, the State Commission for the Protection of Economic  Competition (SCPEC) on November 4 held a session, where a decision  was taken to penalize the Yerevan  Beer JSC with AMD 110  mln (about  USD 230.000)

The Regulator considered the beer price increase as unjustified, and  took a decision to draw all the extra profit to the budget.  Commenting this decision, the Company owner, law maker Hakob Hakobyan  in his interview to journalists stated that it was an attempt to  dispatch the Company. According to Hakobyan, in January-May 2015 the  financial indicators of the company dropped down. And after the  prices at the beer market  started to grow up, the Company was made  to increase its prices also. An appropriate notification was sent to  SCEPC. 

The owner of Yerevan Beer mentioned also that company's employees  knew about this decision prom media publications, and no notification  has been sent to the company. " We will  insist the reimbursement for  financial and mental loss caused to the company," the entrepreneur  stated, and promised to make an appropriate claim for court trial if  the regulator doesn't  cancel  the decision.