“Our country should have a special attitude to the book”

Today at “Heyeli” (“Mirror”) press-club head of the “Antares” holding Armen Martirosyan, head of the “Bureaucrat” book-store Hayk Hovhannisyan and writer Aram Pachyan spoke about the attitude towards book in Armenia and also referred to the law changes which have caused the book praise to be raised with 20%.

Head of the “Bureaucrat” noted that the expensive praises damages the state budget more. “This 20 % has already had its influence on book trade. People started to use e-books more. We are not against it but the use of the books is a culture and there are such books which must be certainly held by the hand”, H. Hovhannisyan said.

The speaker also underlined that the book must be free from the value added tax and the educational books and books for children are free.

Head of the “Antares” publishing house A. Martirosyan said that there are already such books in “Noyyan Tapan” book-store which is bought by 3000 AMD from the author and is sold by 6000 AMD. “Today our users have financial problems and are not able to buy books by such praises”, he said.

Writer A. Pachyan informed that the writers created a group named “We are against the books praises to be increased” in Facebook social network. “We will present a letter to the Armenian Prime Minister and we will wait for the answer. After it our further steps will be clear. We have decided some interesting actions and we want our word to reach its aim. We are promised that discussion in the NA will be held during the coming week”, A. Pachyan said.

According to the writer the law accepters also do not have a concrete explanation why it was accepted. “This year intended to be devoted to the book, as this year Yerevan is announced to be Book World Capital and this year we celebrate the 500^th anniversary of Armenian printing, but this tax prevents it”, A. Pachyan said.

Head of the “Antares” holding informed that they have met the workers if the Ministry of Finances who promised to present an explanation during coming 15 days.

“The book is a spiritual and cultural value and it must have privileges in the taxes sphere Why must we be equal to Azerbaijan and pay high taxes? Why we shouldn’t follow the example of the serious countries and not pay lower taxes? If the country does not treat the book well, society will also not treat well. Our country should have a special attitude to the book”, A. Martirosyan underlined.