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EAEU economy and financial policy matters were the key topics of Bakytzhan Sagintaev's visit to Armenia
On September 5–6, Bakytzhan Sagintaev, EEC Minister in charge of Economy and Financial Policy, visited the Republic of Armenia to hold meetings with Mher Grigoryan, Vice Prime Minister; Vahan Kerobyan, Minister of Economy; Tigran Khachatryan, Minister of Finance; and Hovhannes Khachatryan, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank. Moreover, there were meetings with the business community and representatives of the banking sector.
The meeting with Mher Grigoryan, Vice Prime Minister of Armenia and Member of the EEC Council, was dedicated to discussing relevant integration matters including distribution of import customs duties, mechanisms for administrating indirect taxation in e-commerce, as well as recommendations on fostering the use of national currencies in mutual trade.
Bakytzhan Sagintaev highlighted that Armenia approached integration with the utmost commitment. "Government bodies efficiently solve tasks at hand. As of today, there are no suspended issues that have to be addressed on the bilateral or multilateral level," said he.
During the meeting with Vahan Kerobyan, Minister of Economy of Armenia, Bakytzhan Sagintaev highlighted that the Commission's task was to ensure that the EAEU internal market functioned as efficiently as possible, existing barriers were eliminated and new obstacles did not emerge.
The Ministry of Economy was also the venue for Bakytzhan Sagintaev's meeting with representatives of business community of the Republic of Armenia to discuss issues of priority interest to Armenian business circles. Those were the matters of ensuring the freedom of movement of goods in mutual trade, as well as regulating the circulation of alcoholic products, jewelry and medicines.
The meeting with the Central Bank of Armenia included discussions on transitioning to settlements in national currencies in mutual trade, harmonizing financial laws, building a common exchange space, as well as development of payment and settlement infrastructure. Banking sector representatives raised a number of issues requiring escalation to the Eurasian Economic Commission. On the whole, the financial market of Armenia showed great interest in common interaction to handle the tasks on the current agenda of the Eurasian Economic Commission and Member States.
The procedure of levying indirect taxes in e-commerce when goods are sold by natural persons was given particular emphasis during the meeting between Bakytzhan Sagintaev and Tigran Khachatryan, Minister of Finance. Moreover, the parties discussed implementation of the Agreement on the mechanism of traceability of goods imported into the customs territory of the Union. At the moment, Armenia is finalizing its national traceability system to connect it to the general traceability system for the implementation of a pilot project.
"The key goal of the traceability system is to confirm that the turnover of goods is legal when they move from the territory of one Member State of the Union to the territory of another," noted Bakytzhan Sagintaev.
