Armenia ranks 88th in Forbes rating of business-friendly countries

Armenia ranks 88th in Forbes rating of business-friendly countries

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia ranks the 88th in the Forbes rating of 153 countries based on their business friendliness, falling behind most of its neighbors.

Compiled annually for the past 12 years, the survey of Best Countries for Business was based on 15 different factors: property rights, innovation, taxes, technology, corruption, infrastructure, market size, political risk, quality of life, workforce, freedom (personal, trade and monetary), red tape and investor protection.

“Under the old Soviet central planning system, Armenia developed a modern industrial sector, supplying machine tools, textiles, and other manufactured goods to sister republics, in exchange for raw materials and energy. Armenia has since switched to small-scale agriculture and away from the large agro industrial complexes of the Soviet era. Armenia has only two open trade borders - Iran and Georgia - because its borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey have been closed since 1991 and 1993, respectively, as a result of Armenia's ongoing conflict in Nagorno Karabakh.

“The government has made some improvements in tax and customs administration in recent years, but anti-corruption measures have been largely ineffective. Armenia will need to pursue additional economic reforms and strengthen the rule of law in order to raise its economic growth and improve economic competitiveness and employment opportunities, especially given its economic isolation from Turkey and Azerbaijan,” the report says.

Armenia thus lags behind Georgia (52nd spot), Azerbaijan (70th) and Turkey (56th), outperforming only Iran (100th).

Armenia ranks 47 on the ease of doing business index against the 38 spot last year, the 15th anniversary edition of the World Bank Group’s annual Doing Business report revealed recently.

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