Rustam Badasyan — "Armenia is ready to carry out activities aimed at disclosure of information on real owners"

Today, Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan participated in a workshop on "The transparency of the real owners".

The Minister expressed his gratitude to the Open Government Partnership, USAID and Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center for making the event possible and noted that especially in recent years the governments of different countries in the world acknowledge that one of the means for fighting against tax avoidance, money laundry and corruption crimes is the availability of information on real owners.

"Today, Armenian authorities are more faithful to the commitments envisaged under OGP actions than ever and are ready to carry out activities aimed at disclosure of information on real owners," - Rustam Badasyan said and emphasised that the Ministry of Justice, as the structure responsible for the reforms being implemented in this sector, is willing to closely co-operate with international partners with the purpose of aligning the road map of reforms in Armenia with international best practice and reflecting the interests of interested parties in it.

Attaching importance to holding a workshop on this topic in Armenia, Chief Executive Officer of Open Government Partnership Sanjay Pradhan noted that Armenia is viewed as bright spot of democracy among OGP member states and non-violent velvet revolution in Armenia is really a universal inspiration for everybody. According to him, the current goal of the Government of Armenia is to turn the democratic revolution into an economic revolution. Within this context, Sanjay Pradhan attached importance to the activities aimed at disclosing the real owners as a primary tool for the fight against corruption. "Today, in many countries, where this information is open, democratic elections are held, the citizens trust their government, state bodies. The process of disclosing real owners contributes to increasing the trust of citizens in the government and effective fight against corruption. This is a very important process also for business", - Sanjay Pradhan emphasized, qualifying the approach that disclosure of real owners might harm the investment environment as fictional. "Our experience shows the contrary: it creates equal environment and opportunities for new investments for the "players"," — assured the Chief Executive Officer of the OGP.

During the workshop, Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan and Executive Director of "Open Ownership" Company Thom Townsend signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the purpose of providing technical assistance to ensuring transparency of real owners by "Open Ownership".

Deputy Chief of Staff of the Government of the Republic of Armenia Lianna Ghaltaghchyan, Mission Director of USAID Armenia mission Deborah Grieser, Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures of the Republic of Armenia Lilia Shushanyan and others also participated in the event.