State Fees for Pawnshops and Exchange Points Will Not Increase as Initially Announced

The state fees for pawnshops and currency exchange points will not increase as initially announced. This was stated by the chairman of the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Economic Affairs, Babken Tunyan, on his Facebook page.

The proposed package of amendments and additions to the Tax Code and related laws initially suggested a sharp increase in state fees for pawnshops and exchange points.

Specifically, it was proposed to set the state fee for pawnshops at 6 million drams annually (instead of the current 100,000 drams), while the fee for exchange points was to be set at 3 million drams for each point (instead of the current 50,000 drams).

Considering that the proposed amounts would impose a significant burden on operators in the sector and could lead to the closure of some businesses, these amounts became a subject of discussion in the National Assembly's Economic Affairs Committee.

Following discussions with the government and the Central Bank, an agreement has been reached to set the state fees for pawnshops and exchange points at amounts considerably lower than 6 million and 3 million drams.

The amounts will be reviewed during the transition from the first to the second reading, and the government will present a revised version agreed upon with the National Assembly, featuring lower rates for the state fees.

Further details will be provided during the discussion of the issue at the plenary session of the National Assembly.

I would like to thank all members of the Economic Committee and other committees for their interested and productive discussions, as well as the representatives of the government and Central Bank for their constructive positions.