The Tashir group of companies wants to invest almost $800 million in the development of the Republic of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, Founder and President of Tashir group of companies Samvel Karapetyan said at the Armenian-Russian business forum in Yerevan. In particular, he noted that programs for the development of Karabakh, “without which it is impossible to imagine Armenia,” will be continued. “Here we will invest about $50 million more,” said Karapetyan. Thus, the ongoing forum and its participants propose investing in industry, technologies and infrastructure and are setting an example for this, concluded the president of the Tashir group of companies.

Faktyoxla Lab. has tried to figure out how the president of the Tashir group of companies is going to invest in Nagorno-Karabakh and whether he will succeed in doing it.

To begin with, Samvel Karapetyan is a fairly well-known Russian entrepreneur. As it becomes known from open sources, Samvel Karapetyan moved to Russia in 1992, where in 1997 in Kaluga city he acquired the Kalugaglavsnab company, on the basis of which the Tashir construction and industrial group of companies was created in 1999. The total revenue of the Tashir group companies in 2020, according to open sources, exceeded 186 billion rubles. The main areas of activity are real estate, construction, energy, finance, restaurant business.

That is, regarding Samvel Karapetyan’s investments, they are of Russian origin and the Tashir group of companies wants to invest some money in the development of Karabakh, which is an integral part of Azerbaijan. The attraction and functioning of foreign capital in Azerbaijan is regulated by a wide range of regulatory and legal documents. These are international treaties and agreements, regulations, laws and presidential decrees, as well as a number of specific departmental instructions.

Firstly, on January 18, 2018, the Azerbaijani president issued a decree on a number of measures to encourage investment activities and protect the rights of foreign investors.

In order to create a more favorable investment climate, in accordance with the above Order, amendments were made to the Law on the Protection of Foreign Investments and to the Law on Investment Activity. The rights of foreign investors are also protected by other laws of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Secondly, as a result of the 44-day war, such an administrative territorial unit called “Nagorno-Karabakh” no longer exists. In order to implement the State program of socio-economic development of the Azerbaijani regions for 2019-2023, on July 7, 2021, the Azerbaijani president issued a decree on a new division of economic regions in Azerbaijan, according to which the Karabakh economic region (Khankendi city, Agjabadi, Agdam, Barda, Fuzuli, Khojaly, Khojavend, Shusha and Tartar districts) was also approved. From this point of view, it is not entirely clear where Samvel Karapetyan is going to invest. Any activity of a foreign company on Azerbaijan’s territory is considered illegal without the consent of the country’s government.

Finally, on June 18 this year, the General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan opened a criminal case against three Armenian businessmen and put them on the international wanted list for the illegal supply of weapons to Armenia and the occupied Azerbaijani territories. Samvel Karapetyan is among them.

Thus, taking into account the above-mentioned facts, it is safe to say that the statements of the founder and president of the Tashir group of companies Samvel Karapetyan about investments in Nagorno-Karabakh are populist in nature and have no real basis.