Yerevan will host first international conference dedicated to  corporate governance issues under slogan "Integration, Trust,  Investments"

ArmInfo. For the first time in the business history of Armenia, on May 21, Yerevan will host an international conference dedicated to the formation of a corporate governance system "Modern trends in corporate governance: International experience and Armenian  reality" under the slogan "Integration, Trust, Investments".

The forum will be attended by representatives of the country's  Ministry of Economy and the Commission for the Prevention of  Corruption. The main speakers will be guests invited from abroad  represented by the Director at PwC Switzerland, leading the  Sustainable Finance and Strategic Regulatory practice Antonios  Koumbarakis, Corporate Governance Officer, responsible for the  activities of the ECA ESG Program of IFC Boris Janjalia, Senior  Program Officer, Europe & Eurasia, Center for International Private  Enterprise (CIPE)  Ekaterina (Katya) Lysova, Practice Leader of the  Global Board Practice at Eric Salmon & Partners, The International  Leadership and Governance Advisory Firm Hagen Schweinitz,  Communications Advisor to CEO at Telenor Serbia Sandra Stayner   Independent Non-Executive Director of Ukreximbank   Dimitri Chichlo  and others.

Independent Member of the Board of Directors of Ameriabank Tigran  Davtyan, IT Director, Deputy Director of Corporate Services of the  Central Bank of Armenia Komitas Stepanyan, Chairman  of the Board of  Trustees Tigran Karapetyan and Director of the Corporate Governance  Center Narine Melikyan.

The conference was organized by the Center for Corporate Governance  in cooperation with the Center for International Private Enterprise  (CIPE).

As Narine Melikyan told ArmInfo correspondent, unfortunately, the  business culture of corporate governance in Armenian companies is  rather poorly developed and usually has a formal character. As a  rule, independent members of the Board of Directors are somehow  interconnected with the shareholders of the companies, which makes it  impossible for the institution of independent directors to fulfill  their direct responsibilities to determine the strategic development  of companies, audit control, as well as to reduce market, operational  and corruption risks. Even in the well-developed banking system of  the country, according to the specialist, the corporate governance  system is imperfect and the effectiveness of its application can be  traced only in the first largest banks in the country in terms of  assets. There are also provisions adopted by the Central Bank of the  Republic of Armenia, which in no way correspond to the principles of  corporate governance: when a professional can be a member of the  board of directors of several banks at once (8 and even 9 banks, Ed.  note), which certainly creates a conflict of interest and does not  contribute to the development of this institution, thus making it  formalized. According to Melikyan, the representation of women in the  Boards of Directors of companies and banks is also insufficient.

At the same time, according to Director of AmRating  agency  Emmanuil Mkrtchyan , the difficulties with the establishment of the  institution of independent directors and, in general, the corporate  governance system in Armenia are fundamental in nature, associated  with such circumstances as the dominance of family forms of business,  including  the large ones, in the country, the consequences of the  illiterate privatization carried out in the 1990s, as a result of  which the process of consolidation of companies began under one man,  the absence of full-fledged public companies in the country. All this  does not contribute to the formation of this fundamentally important  institution in the modern business culture in Armenia and does not  create normal incentives for its formation. In this regard, Mkrtchyan  shares the opinion of Armenian specialists in corporate regulation  that the state should become the driver of the development of the  institution, creating various incentives for those companies that set  themselves such a task, well understanding the role of this  institution in the system of risk management and economic  modernization.