A number of companies have moved to Armenia in recent months, and this, according to Hayk Chobanyan, Executive Director of the Union of Advanced Technology Enterprises (UATE), is both an opportunity and a challenge for Armenia.

In the course of the 7th Armenian Internet Management Conference, which is taking place in Yerevan today, he noted that relocation trends may create opportunities for repatriation and become an important stimulus for organizing professional immigration.

However, in order to make the country more attractive for immigrants, he said, a number of steps should be taken.

First of all, according to Chobanyan, housing construction projects should be carried out on a mass scale, so that those who move can quickly find an apartment.

In the second stage, hundreds of business and industrial zones should be created outside Yerevan.

"Yerevan is already becoming unbearable to live and work in. Hundreds of preferential programs should be implemented in small towns, and we should have special programs for the development of small towns," Chobanyan said.

The next step, he said, is reform of the education sector. A quick solution here could be to promote private education.

"We see that there are many private educational institutions that are doing a fantastic job, otherwise parents wouldn't pay for that education. The state should look at this sector as entrepreneurs who are developing education. It's necessary to promote the creation of centers where English-speaking, Russian-speaking and French-speaking children will study," Chobanyan said.

Many Armenians want to move their business to Armenia

Because of geopolitical factors there is a great activity of moving to Armenia in the Middle East and post-Soviet space by our compatriots as well as by many foreigners, Hovhannes Alexanyan, head of the strategy development department of the Chief Commissioner of Diaspora Affairs, said during the conference.

"In addition to applications for repatriation, families, kindergartens for children, school affairs, documents, transportation of goods through the customs border, the Diaspora Office has also received many applications for moving businesses to Armenia," he said. With the provision of benefits guaranteed by the state, we have also initiated a one-stop-shop integration center for Oralmans.

Is IT sector sufficiently supported in Armenia?

According to David Sahakyan, Deputy Minister of High-Tech Industry of Armenia, the government has adopted a program to support IT companies, within the framework of which, if an organization hires more than 10 people after March 1, who are not tax residents in Armenia, these employees will get 50 percent of income tax on their salaries reimbursed by the state.

"We have also launched a new tax exemption project through which we plan to promote the movement of IT companies in the region with various programs, including involving them in educational processes in the regions," he said.

According to the deputy minister, another support program will be distributed by the Ministry of ICT in the near future, but it has nothing to do with compensating the losses incurred by the IT sphere due to the decline in the dollar.

"The IT sphere in Armenia is the most privileged, there are many support programs. In this context, it is very important to discuss the topic with representatives of the sector, where there will be not only complaints but also suggestions. "From today, together with the partners of the Central Bank, we are launching courses on currency risk management for IT companies," he said.

However, representatives of the IT sector believe that the steps taken are not enough to help Armenia's IT sector, as they do not mitigate the consequences of the problems caused by the strengthening of the dram.

According to David Grigoryan, head of DevSoft, the problems arose due to the fall in the dollar exchange rate, which made the possibility of a 50 percent income tax refund in case of hiring new employees inapplicable.

"People started not hiring new employees, not to mention layoffs, which became massive. We hear a lot from government officials that the technology sector already has a lot of privilege. In fact, it's the opposite, what we have is the minimum and we still need to do more, because if we look at attractive countries in terms of technology, we can see how much we have to do. I would really like us as a state to compete with these advanced states," he said.