Wednesday, February 21 2018 18:07

ArmInfo. Armenia needs the  Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade, Vazgen Safaryan, Chairman of  the Union of Domestic Commodity Producers stated at the meeting of  the Public Council on Financial-Economic and Budgetary Affairs  Commission.

According to him, many countries of the world have such an office,  and Armenia should not be an exception. The Ministry would directly  deal with the problems of inactive enterprises, which are still quite  a lot. The urgency of the issue is all the more grounded that,  following the results of 2017, the volume of exports of industrial  products was 12.8%, and tend to increase this indicator. "The ideas  of wild liberalism have been left behind," the head of the Union  believes, adding that today the state should recall its functions as  a regulator whose task should be to solve the problem of inventorying  the entire industrial potential, in the format of public-private  partnership, the development of programs for restarting idle, but  perspective enterprises. Vazgen Safaryan stressed that, for example,  in Great Britain, the state possesses 53% of participation in fixed  assets. In Armenia, however, the participation of the state in the  country's economy is limited only by the functions of the regulator.

An important role in the process of involving enterprises should be  given to the banking and financial system of Armenia. Today, Vazgen  Safaryan continued, commercial banks of the country accumulated 1.7  trillion drams of assets, of which 1.1 trillion - funds of  individuals and 600 billion drams - of legal entities.  A significant  portion of these resources do not work because of high interest  rates. Involvement of the state in the process of employing  enterprises will lead to an increase in interest on the part of the  country's commercial banks, and as a result, funds at affordable  interest rates will be used to solve the existing problem. The  commission, in turn, will study the state of each enterprise  separately, introducing concrete proposals to the executive  structures of power, the chairman of the Union of Domestic Commodity  Producers said.