Armenia`s ministry of economy ready to listen business circles`  proposals to optimize taxation of jewelry industry 

ArmInfo. Tax changes regulating the activities of SMEs have caused a wave of discontent among  businesses, in particular among representatives of the jewelry industry.

The latter stated that such a decision would hit the  industry hard. Moreover, it was made without holding relevant  discussions directly with market participants. Following the protest  action held outside the government building a few days earlier, the  Armenian Ministry of Economy met the business community halfway and  organized a meeting with representatives of the jewelry industry.

The latter were received by Deputy Minister of Economy of Armenia  Edgar Zakaryan. During the meeting, the participants discussed the  situation with the increase in turnover tax from 5% to 10%, which  came into force on January 1.

Having answered a number of questions of concern to businesses, the  deputy head of the department presented the state policy aimed at  developing the jewelry sector, as well as the tools of state support  and opportunities for improving the tax field in this area.

At the end of the meeting, Zakaryan called on the participants to  prepare their proposals on the issues under discussion and send them  to the Ministry to optimize the current legislative norms.

During the protest in front of the government building, its  participants stated that this change would negatively affect their  business and did not take into account the current realities of the  industry. They recalled that previously the turnover tax was 5%, and  in the case of the necessary document flow - 1.5%.  However, now,  according to them, they are facing serious difficulties.

In response to their complaints, they were told that if they had  documents, the tax would be reduced from 1.5% to 1%, adding that they  were doing them a favor. However, market workers had a counter  question about how many of them would be able to draw up documents,  given the length of the process, to reduce the tax to 1%. The  protesters also drew attention to another problem: according to them,  the lack of documents at each inspection leads to an increase in  fines. In conclusion, the protesters expressed dissatisfaction with  the fact that no one takes into account the complexity of gold  inventory.

Production volumes in the jewelry industry in January-November 2024  fell by 34.9% to 48.1 billion drams ($122.5 million). While for the  whole of 2023, a jump of 4.9 times was recorded - to 230.9 billion  drams, in 2022 - by 51.8% - to 42 billion drams.