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It is proposed to exempt the import of the vehicles working with electric engine and alienation from the value added tax (VAT) from January 1 2024 until January 1, 2025.

The RA Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan said this while presenting the draft law on Making Addendum to the RA Tax Code at the sitting of the NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs.

It is designed by the draft to impose additional restriction on the vehicles working with electric engine that are exempted from the VAT payment, i.e. to apply to the cars, which does not exceed five years of their production. The Minister noted that on March 17, 2022 by the decision of the Eurasian Economic Commission Armenia was allocated tariff quota for the import of the vehicles working with electric engine: it was designed to allocate 7000 for 2022, 8000 – for 2023, and within that framework 0 percent of the tax duty of import was applied.

According to Vahan Kerobyan., as a result of exempting from the payment of the VAT and tax duty, the volumes of the import of vehicles working with electric engine increased: in 2022 3485 units were imported, by November 1, 2023 – 4195 vehicles, i.e. 20 percent more than on the previous year. The volume of the import of motorcycles and mopeds with electric engine was 8900 units in 2022, which increased by 3.8 times compared with the previous year.

The Minister informed that on the platform of the Eurasian Economic Commission the issue of exempting the import of the vehicles working with electric engine from the tax duty payment for two more years is under debate. A tariff quota is designed to allocate to Armenia within the framework of 2024-2025, 8000 units for every year.

According to Vahan Kerobyan, the acquisition of transport vehicles working with electric engine and the boosting of operation is consonant with the goals of economy. Favourable conditions will be created in the country by the adoption of the draft to boost the acquisition and operation of the transport vehicles, as well as to decrease the atmospheric air pollution.

The deputy Arsen Torosyan conditioned the fact of leap-like growth of the import of vehicles with electric engine by non-perfect awareness on the efficiency of the use of the citizens’ abovementioned vehicles, and Narek Gharhramanyan – by the high price of the abovementioned vehicles. Arsen Torosyan urged the relevant Ministry to carry out work for the citizens’ awareness on the profitability of operating these cars.

In response to Hovik Aghazaryan’s question, Vahan Kerobyan noted that at this moment the regulations are not spread on passenger buses and trucks.

Tsovinar Vardanyan spoke about the social injustice and raised a question, how just was to give similar privileges to the citizens being socially in better state, and those being in worse state – no privileges. He touched upon the necessity of the mechanisms aimed at making the market more accessible and affordable.

The deputies and the representatives of the executive body referred to the problem of the old cars being imported to our country and debated the possible mechanisms of updating the car parking, talked about the importance of making the field predictable for the citizens.

The Deputy Chair of the Committee Babken Tunyan proposed at this moment to keep the status quo, to give political promise that during the upcoming one year long-term and understandable solutions will be worked out for this field. He proposed to pass the draft, after which the problematic issues will be debated and solutions will be proposed.

The issue was endorsed by the Committee.