Business & Economy

Armenian-Turkish, better yet, Turkish-Armenian economic ties have never been analyzed from a non-political view. The economic ties of developing and aided countries are primarily looked at from the historic/political point of view. Besides the evident reasons, there is one other reason. The outlooks and professional point of views of both our political figures and the unemployed have been shaped by the Communist press which has been involved in politics and economics. Any suggestion made about looking at economy and economical ties from a non-political view is rejected. But there are no economic ties at all. In order for there to be economic ties, the private, social and state capitals play a major role. The fact that we do not want to accept that is a totally different story. Since 1999, the National Statistics Service of Armenia has been informing the public of the economic relations that Armenia has with other countries. Statistics show that Armenia and Turkey have been doing good business together. During the past five years, Armenian businessmen have been exporting $1,100,000-1.5 million dollars worth of goods to Turkey. We are mainly exporting leather (primarily as a raw material). The factories exporting leather who have close ties with the authorities have always persuaded the authorities in passing a law about the customs tax for exporting leather. There are calculations (in business terms-business plans), according to which local production might fully waste the local leather production. But it is evident that the lobbying of exporters is more influential and the authorities are not taking any steps toward this. Official statistics state that every year, $35-40.5 million dollars of products are imported from Turkey. The imported products are mainly food, electrical equipment, construction materials and paper. Many Armenian products are wrapped with Turkish paper and cardboards. It is kind of strange to see raisins and dried apricot being imported from Turkey and not because our raisins and apricots are delicious (if we go along with the “Ours is something else” principle). One has to be pretty tactic in not differing the grapes and other fruits growing on the right side of the Arax river with the ones on the left side. What’s difficult to understand is how the villager living in Armenia always manages to gather so much harvest (agriculture has become the leading form of economy in Armenia for a while), while the farmers cultivating the products are not able to sell the raisins and dried fruit at low prices. As a result, the pastry shops prefer getting raisin and dried fruit imports from Turkey. This is strictly tied with economy and blaming the producers in trying to get a profit out of all this is something like nationalism. Meanwhile, many producers hide the fact that they are collaborating with Turkey. This is the private capital invested in Turkey’s economy. During the past couple of years, the national/societal and state capital has been involved in this also. It all started with the construction projects. The All-Armenian Fund widened its spectrum of investments in the earthquake zone. Whoever has seen the buildings constructed by the fund can assure that all the buildings are nicely built for the residents. There are faucets, bathrooms, shower rooms and the bathrooms are tiled. The fund suggests doing construction projects on homes by providing the above mentioned conditions. This is a good thing. However, one thing that we must state is that those faucets, the tiles, the paints used for painting the rooms, the varnishing paint and other construction materials are all imported from Turkey. If the All-Armenian Fund requires the use of construction matierals from Spain, Italy or Germany, then it will be forced to pay more and since the fund has limited resources, this means that there can not be much construction done. The people who go along with this idea should take the time and visit one of the small homes in the earthquake zone. Of course, there is an alternative; to use non-Turkish products and pay less for construction materials and furnishings (for example, Iranian). However, cheaper means low quality and the resident receiving the apartment will be forced to buy and install the same faucets, switches, etc. So, it turns out that all the economic ties are putting barriers on our lives both as a nation and a society. On one hand, we, the patriotic nation that we are, call on Diasporan Armenians to collect some money and send it to Armenia and on the other hand we are taking that money and investing it into Turkey’s economy. It is through that means by which Turkey receives one part of the amount from Armenia’s state budget for construction projects. There is nothing extraordinary about this if we look at it from the economic management point of view. What is unusual is that all this is going on within the framework of the Armenian National Assembly’s active political strategies and the political announcements. It is pretty difficult to give a total analysis on the Turkish-Armenian economic relations because those relations go through negotiations. According to experts, the products imported from Turkey are worth more than $35-40 million dollars. The negotiator here is Georgia. This means that one part of the Armenian consumer’s price belongs to Georgia and this has nothing to do with the fact that we have extra money. The reason for this is that we are politicizing economy and that is what our political figures love doing the most. Nationalism plays no major role here. Perhaps the reason for this is that the political/economic field can be compared to the violin being mixed up with the drum and dhol.