Yerevan/Mediamax/. General Director of “Capital Asset Management” Investment Company Tigran Karapetyan expressed an opinion that the reasons to introduce obligatory pension accumulation in Armenia are ambiguous.

Mediamax reports that, responding to concerns of readers of his interview to Banks.am portal, according to which the compulsory accumulative component, in process of introduction in Armenia, is absent in developed countries of the West, Tigran Karapetyan stated that according to theorists of this sphere, transition to compulsory accumulative system does not have an alternative, taking into account the aggravating tendencies of the population’s ageing. 

“Countries of Western Europe keep to a different policy: they simply increase the pension age. This, however, is a short-term measure. In long-term prospect, I believe, these countries to some degree will start applying the obligatory component. Demographic problems do not leave another alternative. The question is when exactly that will happen”, Tigran Karapetyan stated, adding that in the USA and in other developed countries, pension savings have become an ordinary phenomenon and even contain a culture element.

According to him, if the offer of the government is approved by the legislators, on the threshold of 2014 it will become possible to analyze the results of three years of work and assess the strengths and the weaknesses of compulsory component implementation.

Answering the question on whether it is possible to preserve pension savings while emigrating from Armenia, Tigran Karapetyan stated that if the citizenship is changed, the person will have the right of single time transfer of his/her pension assets to the pension account, functioning in the new country of residence, irrespective of whether there is a compulsory accumulative component in effect there or not.

“In current drafts of legislative acts there is no detailed information on transfer of assets. I assume that in future these procedures will be elaborated. For instance, maybe, you will choose a particular fund in the country of your permanent residence and will order your savings to be transferred there from Armenia. Then, when you reach the pension age, you will be able to receive pension from the given fund”, “Capital Asset Management” Head stated.