Congratulations to His excellency Ararat Mirzoian who will be a great asset for Armenia and mR.pashinyan. Regards/S.Gregorian. .glendale, CA, USA

Everything and anything that you eat, wear, drive or live in; is made with tools. It’s impossible to posses something today that was made without a tool. Tools mean jobs. Factories were sold for scrap metal, so people now don’t have tools and no place to work. They are looking for places which have tools to hire them to work. I have been exporting Complete Factories to 173 countries since 1972. Armenia is the only country in the World who charges customs duty for Complete Factories. Their calculation is; what they think the equipment is worth plus shipping costs then tax it for 21%. There is no reference point anywhere on the Internet for a Complete Factory specially a used one, so Armenia Customs comes up with a guess work of what they think it’s worth disregarding the authentic purchase documents of the exporter. The result is that the importer faces an expensive proposition; therefore purchases inferior tooling from sources such as China or Taiwan which means it drains Armenia of its foreign exchange for an inferior quality for a short life span. Most used Western European and US equipment are far more superior in quality compared to new Chinese inferior cheaper equipment. As an alternative; Armenian manufacturers are purchasing old inefficient equipment from Russia, produce a product which does not meet international standards with the hope of producing quantities which are far short for any serious purchaser and trying to compete only on cheaper labor costs, and they don’t succeed. Armenian products sell in Russia because the quality control does not exist and it’s so cheap that Russian consumer will buy it anyway compared to products from Turkey or China. Today the international markets are ready to purchase the best quality product in large quantities at a reasonable price. Most buyers already know the secret of where to buy cheap low quality product, therefore to compete with inferior products is a losing proposition. Armenia and U.S. have signed trade agreements in early 1980 through1990 ies to accommodate technology transfer at cost; without the burden of customs and taxation. All U.S. and Western European exporters are required to report what was sold at what price to whom. U.S. Department of Commerce is now monitoring misbehavior for such transaction under the label of “fair play” and Armenia is on the top of the list of underdeveloped countries who has received such concessions which means U.S. will not charge customs duties to Armenian exports in exchange not to be charged customs duties from U.S. specifically for Complete Factories, manufacturing equipment, and agricultural machinery and processing machinery (although AR Customs says agricultural machinery are exempt, but the bribes are well over 10% of the cost) but Armenia does charge Customs Duty. Although U.S./Armenia trade is a miniscule amount for U.S. but the principal of bad behavior will be surfaced soon which may cause either exuberant custom duties for Armenian goods exported to U.S. or outright cancellation of such valuable agreements. At that time it will be very difficult to explain to Armenian exporters whose fault it was and why they lost the market. Last 15 years I have shipped Complete Factories to Kenya, Zambia, South Africa and Jordan. The participant makes the product and I buy the finished product from him (a built in customer) which along with the selling price he pays off the factory in 5-10 years for 6% interest. This has been very successful taking away the worries that if manufactured product will sell and sell at a profitable price to service the loan and leave the owner with profits. Secret to their success to is the mechanics of collection of the debt. In these countries if the debtor is late one day, the factory is closed down by law enforcement within 24 hours and borrower’s assets frozen. In the event of a fraud he is prosecuted and put in jail. Without such strong enforcement, it is very difficult to attract substantial investments, although not impossible if the authorities are involved and guarantee repayment through a bank. This has nothing to do with trust. It’s all business. I tried similar pattern with 3 factories; complete metalworking factory, jewelry mass production factory, and plastic injection factory 4 years ago in Artsakh, had to argue with Customs in Sisian for year and a half, which is still the talk of the town and ended up donating the equipment to the French Technical School in Shushi for training purposes, but not any production. Just like cars, when a factory is old and inefficient, it is sold and replaced with new faster and higher quality production. I buy these factories since they are still viable to be used another 10-20 years in other countries where energy, labor and taxes are lower than USA. What I purchase either in auction or outright; it has no history of value anywhere and the purchase price at that date sets the value. To add transportation cost to destination as value is the reminiscent of Soviet era thinking that “this is what it has cost us” which brings in the logic of if it was shipped by plane it would have had much higher customs duty?, than if brought by ship? Charging customs duty on any shipping costs on any item anywhere in the world is illegal. Check it out yourself. Customs has gone far enough to charge duty on donations made from church to church saying “you could sell it” what a logic! so we pay a bribe to let it pass through. Respectfully, Vartan Vahramian, General Manager www.Tradeway.us www.milkfactoryusa.com [email protected] (661) 263-1482 Comment...