On June 8 at the House of Journalist in Yerevan a press-conference was held, where the representatives of journalistic associations spoke about the draft amendments to the RA Laws “On Postal Communication”, “On Licensing” and “On State Duty”, proposed by the RA National Assembly deputies of the United Labor Party Gurgen Arsenian and Grigor Ghonjeyan. According to the draft amendments developed by them, the provisions on licensing of organizations who implement subscription for print periodicals and their delivery should be removed from the respective laws.
In April this year similar amendments to the Law “On Postal Communication” were proposed by Yerevan Press Club.
The drafts of the ULP faction meet the requirements of the journalistic community and the press disseminating agencies. However, as it was stated at the press-conference, the stance of the Government does cause concern. The Government agrees that the subscription service does not have to be licensed, yet maintains that the subscription delivery is actually the same as the letter delivery, and its licensing is necessary as conditioned by the interests of the consumers.
In the opinion of journalistic associations, the functioning of the Law “On Postal Communication” as the Government sees it will mean a shutdown for many private companies engaged in newspaper and magazine delivery by subscription: their small profits will not afford the payment of 5 million AMD for the license (over $ 11,500). The monopolist position, with all the resulting negative consequences, will be taken by the national communication operator “Haypost” (“Armpost”). Putting an equality sign between the deliveries of open print periodicals with letter delivery is completely illogical: the letters contain confidential information and hence the activity of the organizations that deliver them to the addressees must be under certain control of the state.
Meanwhile, on June 7 the RA State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition admitted that “Armpost” has already taken a dominating position on the market in several services, including interstate post, telegraph and urgent messenging service.
On June 9 the proposed amendments to the RA Law “On Postal Communication”, “On Licensing” and “On State Duty” will be considered by the RA NA Standing Committee on the Issues of Finance, Loan, Budget and Economy. (For related information see YPC Weekly Newsletter, February 24 – March 2, 2006, February 3-9, 2006, December 2-8, 2005.)
