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.