American Chamber of Commerce in Armenia ('AmCham'),
1, Amiryan Street, Room 313
Yerevan
Phone: 59 91 87
Fax: 59 91 51
E-mail: amcham@arminco.com
Website: www.amcham.am

Yerevan. A workshop, organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Armenia and funded by the United States Department of Commerce, took place on Wednesday July 30th in the Queen Erato Room of the Hotel Armenia.

The theme of the workshop was "Business Ethics", with a particular emphasis on the workplace for companies in Armenia.

Over twenty participants, all company executives, gathered to hear presentations from various experts and to discuss the questions arising from, and suggest solutions to, the issues raised.

The workshop was run by Lusine Janoyan, Second Vice-President of American Chamber of Commerce, and also General Manager of M-Possible, who is a fully trained Business Ethics trainee and has participated in the program on Business Ethics and Good Governance, organized by the US State Department of Commerce. She welcomed the participants to the workshop and introduced Igor Abramov, Senior Advisor for Russia and NIS, and Elizabeth Ramborger, Good Governance Program Officer, both from the US Department of Commerce. Igor Abramov thanked Lusine Janoyan for the work she was doing and handed her a certificate of appreciation from the Department. Lusine Janoyan then proceeded to give her presentation, and invited participants to put forward ideas on business ethics, what it is and why we need it. She presented some new ideas and gave examples of how business ethics are perceived in other countries.

Davit Atanessyan, Human Resouces Director of the Hotel Armenia, presented the Marriott Hotel code of conduct and Levon Levonyan, Human Resouces Manager at HSBC, gave an outline of their code for employees.

Anahit Simonyan, Portfolio Manager, UNDP, stated that they have personnel manuals outlining ethical standards. She then went on to present some of the work being done to help businesses to develop business ethics codes.

After some discussion, participants agreed to set up a working group aimed at developing business ethics standards and codes for companies. They will be meeting in the very near future.

AmCham President, Tim Papworth then closed the workshop with few words of thanks, particularly addressed to Lusine Janoyan.

The American Chamber of Commerce in Armenia is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the business environment. Over the past three years, the chamber has sponsored many conferences, workshops and seminars on the theme of "Country Competitiveness", all of which have been successful and well attended.

For further information contact amcham@arminco.com or visit our web-site www.amcham.am where, where you will find information about our activities. Business Ethics Workshop materials will be placed on the website over the next few weeks.