ArmInfo.Armenia's Ministry of Economy has organized a meeting with members of the Mantashyants business club.
According to the department's press service, the parties discussed the programs implemented by the state in the field and their vision for business development.
Kerobyan noted that the programs being implemented today are aimed at expanding the production capabilities of local enterprises and increasing productivity.
In particular, participants were presented with details of government assistance programs for modernizing the economy, attracting highly qualified specialists, producing economically complex products, as well as the "Infrastructure in exchange for investment" program.
Particular attention was paid to the issues of economic integration of Artsakh business representatives.
The economic modernization program was launched at the beginning of 2022. The first component of the program involves reimbursing companies for financial costs, developing leasing, and subsidizing interest on loans for the modernization of fixed assets, including production lines.
As part of the program, the state subsidizes 7% in drams in the case of a loan agreement, 6% in foreign currency; in the case of leasing agreements, the subsidy in drams is 10%, in foreign currency - 8%.
The program to attract highly qualified specialists from abroad provides for subsidizing the latter's wages. In particular, the state compensates businesses for 20-70% of the salaries of these specialists. 20% of the salary will be subsidized for specialists who graduated from one of the 400 leading universities in the world (according to the Shanghai ranking), or have work experience at one of the leading enterprises in the world (from the Fortune 500 or Forbes 2000 list). The amount of the subsidy will increase to 50% if the candidate, in addition to meeting the first criterion, has an academic degree (according to the Western classification - PhD). The state will subsidize salaries in the amount of 70% if a specialist also teaches at a university or other educational institution.
Support under the program for the production of goods with a high coefficient of economic complexity will be provided in three stages. At the first stage, when starting production, one-time assistance will be provided in the amount of 10% of capital investments made in production, then the business will receive support in the amount of another 5% of investments, in the event that product sales reach the level of 10% of investments. At the first two stages, support will be related to the size of investments, at the third stage it will depend on the amount of taxes paid. In particular, 100% of the profit tax and 50% of the income tax will be returned to the business.
The Infrastructure for Investment support program aims to provide investors with access to the infrastructure (roads, gas, electricity or water) needed to implement their projects, at no additional cost to them.
In particular, the government will provide infrastructure worth 20% of the investment amount.