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On March 22, the National Assembly began the work of the regular sittings.

The parliament debated the NA draft decision on Making Addenda to the Agenda of the Third Session of the NA Eighth Convocation.

By the proposal of the Secretary of the RA NA With Honor Faction, the parliament observed a minute of silence to honour memory of the victims of the massacres perpetrated by the Turkish-Azerbaijani groups in Shushi on 22 March 1920.

Afterwards the item including in the agenda of the session the draft law on Making Amendment and Addendum to the RA Tax Code authored by the deputy of the RA NA Armenia Faction Aghvan Vardanyan that received negative conclusion in the NA Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Diaspora, Youth and Sport was debated.

In Aghvan Vardanyan’s word, the goal of the legislative initiative is to boost the reading, education and the publishing activity. It has been proposed to exempt from the value added tax (VAT) the book printing and the import of the necessary materials for that, which, according to the author, can essentially promote the expansion of the book production and the print volume.

The co-rapporteur Taguհi Ghazaryan has noted that there are also privileges in the sphere of the book publishing: the children’s literature, the educational-pedagogical textbooks are exempted from the VAT. According to the co-rapporteur, the second part of the draft law, where it is proposed to exempt from the VAT the importing raw material for the book publishing, which is very difficult to determine is problematic.

As a result of voting the draft law was not included in the agenda of the session.

Presenting the draft law of the agenda of the regular sittings, the NA Vice President Ruben Rubinyan informed that the package of the draft laws on Making Addendum to the Criminal Code and on Making Addendum to the Criminal Procedure Code authored by the deputies Ishkhan Saghatelyan, Aram Vardevanyan, Aghvan Vardanyan was not endorsed at the RA NA Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs. However, the NA Armenia Faction considered the item extraordinary, thus, according to Article 96 of the constitutional law the NA Rules of Procedure, it should be debated at the NA second main sitting today, on March 22.

The National Assembly approved the agenda of the regular sittings.

The parliament by voting made a decision to hold the debate of the item of the public interest The Humanitarian Situation in the Artsakh Republic, the Threats and the Urgent Work to be Done.