YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 8, NOYAN TAPAN. At the November 8 sitting, the Armenian government approved the draft law on making amendments and additions to the RA Criminal Code. The RA deputy prosecutor general Mnatsakan Sargsian said after the sitting that the adoption of the law is conditioned by the necessity to change the penal policy conducted in the fight against crimes aimed against economic activity. According to him, by these amendments, it is envisaged to use a fine in the amount of three thousand minimum salaries instead of a thousand minimum salaries as the upper limit of the fine and 3-5 years imprisonmet instead of the current 2-4 years' imprisonment as administrative penalty in case of an economic crime. According to statistics, 137 economic crimes were registered last year, which was twice as many as in 2005. By the way, M. Sargsian said that the ground for opening a criminal case against the director of Pizza di Roma company was the fact that evasion of taxes of 15 million drams (about 45 thousand dollars) was revealed only at one of the seven facilities owned by the company.

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