Georgia Penalizes Almost All Vehicles Transporting Passengers from Armenia to Tbilisi

Artyom Asriyan, who is involved in passenger transportation from Yerevan to Tbilisi, raises an alarm: “Since early this morning, almost all vehicles transporting passengers from Armenia to Tbilisi have been fined by the Transport Department of the Republic of Georgia, including both minibuses and minivans. Each vehicle is fined 5,000 Lari (approximately 750,000 AMD).

When we encountered this issue around noon and our first vehicle was fined, we assumed the problem was related to picking up return passengers. However, throughout the day, our vehicles that were returning to Yerevan without any passengers after dropping them off in Tbilisi were also fined.

Finding ourselves in this situation, we tried to confirm with other organizations conducting passenger transport along the Yerevan-Tbilisi route. It turned out that the issue is not limited to us; almost everyone is being fined, regardless of the legal grounds under which they are operating.

This problem is unprecedented in the 14 years of our operations; we have never faced such an issue before. Therefore, we expect a quick response from the relevant Armenian authorities. Otherwise, being fined 2–3 million AMD daily will put all passenger transport companies between Yerevan and Tbilisi, including us, in a very difficult situation within just 15–20 days.

Ceasing passenger transport would mean nullifying years of our work and, more critically, paralyzing the main route connecting Armenia to the outside world, which would further exacerbate the situation of our country already under blockade.

We see two potential reasons behind the emergence of this problem: either due to the influence of hostile states, efforts are being made to fully blockade Armenia, or anti-competitive methods are being used to clear the field for a major player which may likely be a Georgian company. I also do not rule out the possibility that Turkish or Azerbaijani investments could be behind this alleged organization.

In the end, we inform that despite the current situation, we continue our work, and we invite all companies and individual drivers facing this problem to address the issue collectively. We will appeal all recorded fines according to Georgian laws and propose to do this together,” wrote Artyom Asriyan.