ArmInfo. Armenia is going to introduce the practice of re- domiciliation of companies to attract foreign investors. The relevant bill was approved at the Government's sitting on October 20.
Armenian Minister of Economic Development and Investments Suren Karayan said that the introduction of such practices will become possible due to a number of amendments to the Civil Code of Armenia, Law "On state duties", and the related laws. The need to adopt legislative amendments has arisen to due to the fact that at the current stage there is no institution that can relocate a company to another jurisdiction. In the meantime, he said, many countries have successful practices of re-domiciliation of companies, which allows not only attracting foreign investments and being a favorable center for business development, but also making the country attractive for skilled personnel. "Redomiciliation allows the organizations of a country to move to Armenia without stopping their activities," Karayan said. To note, re?domiciliation is a process when legislation permits the transfer of a company's seat of incorporation into or out of the jurisdiction.
To recall, in 2016 the share of foreign investments in Armenia dropped to 1.7% of GDP. According to the National Statistical Service of Armenia, as of 1 July 2016 (in H1 2016), the net inflow of investments from the US to the real economy of Armenia amounted to 564.2 mln AMD, with the negative indicator of the direct foreign investments being 1.2 bln AMD. The US funds were mainly invested in IT, financial mediation, tourism and power engineering. The total net inflow of investments to the real economy of Armenia was negative as of that date - 16.9 bln AMD, with the net inflow of direct foreign investments being positive - 16.6 bln AMD (versus positive 81.9 bln AMD and 30.7 bln AMD, respectively, a year before). To note, it is already more than two years that the statistics does not specify the absolute value of investments, but mentions only the net inflow of investments. As of 1 July 2016, the AMD/USD exchange rate was 476.68 AMD/$1.