42nd Session of the SME Development Sub-Council Led by RA Minister of Economy Gevorg Papoyan

On September 23, the 42nd meeting of the SME Development Sub-Council was held under the chairmanship of Minister of Economy of the Republic of Armenia Gevorg Papoyan.

At the beginning of the meeting, Hovsep Patvakanyan, Head of the Investment Council of Armenia, presented a report on the implementation of issues previously discussed. This was followed by a discussion of the agenda items.

The agenda included two interconnected issues related to delayed payments by retail chains to suppliers: the introduction of an automated system for periodic reporting on payments and the review of the existing conditions for applying liability for delayed payments.

Under the current legislation, retail chains are required to pay suppliers within a maximum of 30 days for food products and 60 days for non-food products. However, payment delays continue to be among the issues raised by businesses. At the same time, suppliers often refrain from filing complaints in order not to jeopardize their business relationships with retail chains, while the regulatory authority does not have regular and comprehensive information on payments.

The issue was presented by Hayk Malkhasyan, Senior Legal Counsel at the Investment Council of Armenia. During the discussion, Haykaz Fanyan, representative of the Armenian Center for Socio-Economic Studies Foundation, Karen Zakaryan, Director of FINARM, and other participants also presented their positions and recommendations. Anna Petrosyan presented the position of the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

Summarizing the discussion, Minister of Economy Gevorg Papoyan instructed to review the existing 90-day overdue payment threshold for applying liability and reduce it to 30 days, review the existing accumulated debt threshold to AMD 1.5 million, introduce an automated reporting system that would enable the systematic recording of payment delays by retail chains, and review the amounts of the existing liability measures.

The draft will be further revised, taking into account the decisions made and recommendations raised during the meeting, and will then be circulated among relevant stakeholders for their feedback. The revised proposals will be presented at a meeting of the SME Development Council chaired by Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Tigran Khachatryan.

At the end of the meeting, potential models for a policy on promoting locally produced goods were also discussed. Such models could create broader domestic market opportunities for small producers and ensure better representation of their products in retail chains. The issue will be discussed in greater detail at one of the upcoming meetings of the Sub-Council.