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ARMENIAN MINISTERS SPEAKING ON ARMENTEL IMBROGLIO

Economy

Climate of hostility towards investors is being created in Armenia, member of ArmenTel’s directorial board Maklares said the other day. This is the first time all over the world a minister urging subscribers to evade per-minute payment for using telephone line, he also said.

Neither Justice Minister David Harutyunyan nor Communication Minister Andranik Manoukyan paid any attention to the investor’s such a hard-line attitude. David Harutyunyan told our correspondent he had even not met with Maklares since then. Andranik Manoukyan, for his part, said Maklares made a provocative statement but the ministers ignored the provocation. It would be better, Manoukyan said, Maklares and his team to upgrade telecommunication quality in Armenia instead of insisting on payment. “Only after that they would have any right to talk about per-minute payment. Now, the communication quality is worth a red cent”, Manoukyan repeated words he has said once.

The Communication Minister reminds that earlier this year ArmrnTel promised to invest some 24 million USD to provide 80% of the republic territory with cellular communication. However, without having necessary equipment and making proper investments the company sold out its notorious Easy Cards, but it is impossible to communicate by cellular phones, the minister says.

Taking into consideration ArmenTel’s above mentioned abuses it still remains unclear why Armenian government having enough grounds to strip ArmenTel of its monopoly, so far, refrains from doing it.