Hakob Avagyan, president of Armenia’s Small and Medium Sized Business Cooperation Association, complained that the country’s new tax code was drafted without any feedback from the business community.

Avagyan said the code, passed yesterday by the parliament, was basically the creation of the finance ministry and there was no discourse with NGOs nor the business sector in order to highlight the tax issues they face and to ask for solutions.

While Avagyan conceded that he hasn’t had time to peruse the entire new tax code, a complicated task in itself, entrepreneurs have raised a number of concerns.

“Each person has read sections of the code related to their field and are telephoning our organization, asking what such and such a passage means. There are many incomprehensible passages in the code.