Promoting Competition and Creating Contestable Markets in Armenia

Abstract

This policy note has been produced under the competition reform assessment ASA with the objective of identifying key constraints to competition in Armenia and providing recommendations on a set of actionable reforms that could help foster market contestability and competition in key sectors and across the economy. In particular, the policy note seeks to identify a menu of priority reform areas for potential engagement between the World Bank Group (WBG) and the government of Armenia (GoA). Information for this note was initially collected during a mission held in September 2018 and was subsequently validated with relevant agencies of the GoA. The assessment employs the markets and competition policy assessment toolkit of the markets and competition policy team of the WBG’s equitable growth, finance and institutions Vice Presidency. In addition, selected sections of the OECD’s product market Regulation Indicators questionnaire were employed to gain a sense of how Armenia compares to peer countries in the region on some specific regulatory issues which may restrict competition. Finally, a conference was held in June 2019 based on the findings emerging from this policy note and discussions with key policy makers during this conference have been used to develop a plan of action for engagement between the WBG and GoA in the short term. A summary of this conference and the action plan are included in a supplementary note delivered under this ASA.