Doing business in Armenia

The brief review

Investment policy of RA is part of the general economic policy of the Government of RA and is considered as one of the important means of economic development. The investment policy is directed to the formation of the favorable investment and business environment, growth of transparency of the regulating environment, detection of competitive advantages of the country, growth of volumes of investments, on development of market infrastructures and the solution of problems of economic development on the basis of all the abovementioned. The further process of scientific and technical and industrial development of the country in many respects is conditioned by developing of purposeful investment policy and its effective realization. As in all developed countries, the maintenance of the growth of investments in RA, solves the important issues such as creation of jobs, attraction of special know-how for market economy (the general and financial regulation, the marketing, new technologies, skills, etc.), access to new markets, access opportunities to these markets.

In relation to investments RA has declared and carries out the policy of "open doors” and this liberal approach is specified in the legislation, in particular in the Law “On foreign investments ” of RA adopted in 1994, in the Concept of the Investment policy adopted in 2005, and in other legislative acts regulating economic environment concerning investments.

Investment policy of RA was made and carried out on liberal bases and directed to the integration of Armenia into the world economy.

The main principles of investment policy of RA are:

application of liberal principles of economic activities in investment sphere;
maintenance of attraction and stability of the legislation regulating the investments;
maintenance equal, not discriminatory economic conditions for foreign and internal investors;
granting of the national treatment and most favored nation treatment to foreign investors and investments;
maintenance of protection of legitimate interests of investors and investments.

The basic purposes of investment policy of RA are: maintenance of stable economic growth and increase of a living standard of the population by means of increase of economic activity, increase in volumes of investments and creation of a favorable investment climate.

For formation of the favorable investment environment and increase in volumes of foreign and internal investments special importance is given to the problem of overcoming of bureaucratic obstacles in the investment environment.

Stimulation of investments, presence of their significant volumes in economy was and remains the determinative for maintenance of comprehensible rates and volumes of economic development of RA.

With the purpose of improvement of the investment environment and stimulation of investments, the Government of RA aspires to carry out some primary steps what the following are:

In order to prevent unequal regional development of the country and stimulation of investments in regions targeted measures - development of economic infrastructures, relations and communications, application of effective system of stimulation and assistance - are carried out. At the same time the development and realization of complex programs of regional development will be continued.

Steps are taken for an essential change of structure of competitive advantages of the country taking into account modern tendencies of direct foreign investments, such as progressive increase in investment volumes in science intensive branches where the role of presence of natural resources and a cheap labor should gradually decrease and at the same time there should be decisive “created actives” such as qualified personnel, scientific and technical structures, development of infrastructures. A special attention is attached to the development of communicative and information technologies and their wide application. Now these technologies are one of the basic strategic directions of the policy of state development.
Realization of more directed and active cooperation with Diaspora by means of formations of mutually reliable and favorable environment.
Formation of an insurance system corresponding to the world standards with the purpose of investment protection from possible investment risks.

Details

Foreign economic cooperation

Foreign trade-economic cooperation of the Republic of Armenia was formed and implemented on liberal basis. In general, the major and preferable directions of foreign trade-economic cooperation are: integration of RA to world economy, promotion of export, involvement of investments, creation of a favorable environment for the development of foreign economic activity, reduction of the negative rest of trade balance, development of adequate substructures promoting the raise of productiveness of foreign trade-economic activity, etc.

Carrying out the balanced policy in the field of foreign-economic cooperation is caused by the selected priority of deepening and establishing new, more favorable relations for Armenia in bilateral and multilateral cooperation with other countries.

The tailor-made and consistent works are doing in these directions.

In particular:

signing of multilateral and bilateral agreements by RA in the field of trade-economic cooperation
organization of intergovernmental commissions works on trade-economic and scientific–technical cooperation with foreign countries and implementation of agreed during sessions issues
assistance (consulting, organizational and etc.) to participants introducing Armenian products in Domestic and International exhibitions.

The establishment of Trade Representations of RA in EU, Russia as well as in the USA will assist for the further development of foreign trade-economic cooperation of RA with other countries.

Source: The Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Armenia

MFA RA
official website

Dual citizenship

Electronic visa

Visa applications