Five high-level officials from the Armenian Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Justice and the Prime Minister's Office attended a study tour to Finland and Estonia this fall to look into local practice and experience in the fields of better regulation and regulatory impact assessment.
According to the member of the high-level study tour, Ministry of Economy's Deputy Minister Karine Minasyan, the study tour was a good opportunity to get to know best practice regarding better regulation right on location.
"We have been carrying out the regulatory impact assessment only from the beginning of this year and it has already provided good results. Better regulation helps to save taxpayers' money, reduces bureaucracy and makes our business environment attractive for both local and foreign investors. So, we are obviously interested in improving our legislative process even further to make sure that, for instance, in the case of the Ministry of Economy, the interests of businessmen are really looked after in the process of law-making," Mrs.Minasyan points out.
The Deputy Minister said that although the schedule was rather gruelling, the study tour was very satisfactory. “We have a confirmation that Armenia is heading in the right direction with the regulatory impact assessment and got some new ideas on how to proceed,” she concluded.
The high-level study group consisting of Deputy Ministers, Chiefs of Staff and Department Heads visited the Ministry of Employment, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Justice and the Prime Minister's Office in Finland and Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications in Estonia. The topics covered include among others regulatory impact assessment, governmental services quality assessment, e-filing in the taxation system, service centres, e-society and inspection system.
The regulatory impact assessment is carried out under EU twinning project "Support to the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Armenia: Regulatory Management / Standard Cost Model". The duration of the project is from February 1, 2010 until May 24, 2012. The project is funded by the European Union with a budget of 1,100,000 Euro. The project objective is to develop a regulatory management programme that helps to make administrative practices more transparent and decrease the administrative burden in order to increase the attractiveness of Armenia for investors. The Member State partner of the project is HAUS Finnish Institute of Public Management.
From the beginning of the year the RIA team of the Ministry of Economy has analysed close to 300 laws and decrees to determine whether they might have a negative impact on small and medium enterprises and competition.
