Former Labels Cost 3.5 Dram, Now Businesses Are Forced to Pay 7.2 Dram, Says Nairi Sargsyan

Former labels, which were made with high-quality holographic printing, were purchased by the state for 3.5 dram and provided free of charge to importing and manufacturing companies. This was mentioned on Facebook by Nikol Pashinyan's assistant Nairi Sargsyan.

“Now, for printing regular black and white labels on ordinary white paper, businesses are forced to pay 7.2 dram, of which 4.2 dram goes to the private company E-mark for obtaining a generated code and 3 dram is for printing at any printing house. The obtained QR code can even be printed at home using a regular printer.

Negative aspects include:

1. Previously, the state paid for the labels; now, it is the entrepreneur who bears the cost.
2. The cost of printing labels has doubled.
3. It was previously extremely difficult to counterfeit labels (different images appeared when looking under a light); now it is very easy.
4. Producers, importers, and sellers are facing serious headaches, starting from ordering codes, printing, to scanning all QR codes individually during sales (for example, previously, when buying 2 packs of water, the seller could scan 1 barcode and multiply it by 24; now every single code must be scanned individually, each one twice).

Why did the State Revenue Committee announce an open competition for label printing before, but now the code generation program has been directly given to one company? Perhaps another company could provide the same service at three times lower cost, saving businesses several billion dram.

According to rumors, there are unscrupulous producers who order 1,000 codes but print 10,000. Since during sales a significant portion of stores do not scan the QR codes, it is possible to print, paste on the product, and sell an unlimited number of labels carrying the same code. This is especially beneficial for excise goods (for example, cigarettes and alcohol), as the entrepreneur can save 4,200 dram in excise tax for every liter of vodka.

Taking the above into consideration, I propose that our authorities discuss the issue of returning to the previous system. If the goal is to save money for the state budget, then it might be possible to make the former holographic labels paid,” he wrote.