First time in many years the highest Catholical medal has been bestowed upon a member of the Armenian Church in the UK. His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, awarded St. Nerses Shnorhali medal with an encyclical, “Gontag”, to Mr Vartan Ouzounian for many years of service to the Armenian Church and Armenian people both in the Motherland and the Diaspora.

Born far from Armenia, in Syria, Mr Vartan Ouzounian was brought up and educated with Armenian spirit, patriotism and love to the national culture. At an early age he realized the importance of preserving the national identity, and since his student years Mr Ouzounian has been actively involved in the national and spiritual life of Armenian communities, following the long family tradition of lending a helpful hand to the nation. (more…)

Tower International Consultants wishes to inform ABBC members that on Wednesday, 13 July 2011 the Foreign Ministers of United Kingdom and Armenia signed a bilateral agreement to lift  the double taxation on income and property between the governments of the two countries. This is the first step. The parliaments of both countries should now review and ratify the agreement before it becomes effective. This process could take several months. Once ratified the agreement will come into effect.

This agreement will mean that citizens and companies doing business between UK and Armenia will benefit by not being taxed twice on the same income, once in one country and again in the other country. This will reduce the tax burden on businessmen thereby increasing business activity and will make the administration of tax more simple.

Both countries have great potential in the areas like high technology, energy, transportation, banking system as possible areas of economic cooperation.

Tower is a consulting company whose aim is to assist businessmen and companies to achieve their goals by providing solutions. See Tower’s web site.

ABBC members were invited to the 10th EU-Armenia subcommittee meeting on trade, economic and related legal issues.  Within the framework of the visit, EU officials from the headquarters met with the representatives of the Armenian business community, in particular, foreign economic operators in Armenia or representations of European companies.

The purpose of the meeting was to inventory any trade and investment related problems businesses face here locally. The meeting, which took place on June 28 with the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia was an interactive discussion on topics like issues in the business environment such as unfair competition, difference in business atmosphere depending on the size of the business, the essence of the organic application of the law in the judicial system, public – private partnership as well as intellectual property rights.

On a more positive note representative of BSC Mr. Gevorgyan mentioned that despite of the problems businesses face “external factors are improving”, Mr. Stark (Honorary Council of Ireland) urged that International Organisations deal with the “symptoms” of the real problems.