3-4 days ago the information outlets of Armenia publicized information, which remained quite imperceptible.
By the invitation of the RA minister of economy Nerses Yeritsyan Yerevan hosted the former minister of economy of Venezuela, director of the international development center of University of Harvard, professor of management institute after Kennedy, Ricardo Houseman. The venerable guest met at the American University of Armenia with the students and professors of universities and institutes specialized in economy. He lectured for them. But the noteworthy thing is not the visit or even the lecture of the ex-minister but the contents. The theme of the lecture was the secret of economic development. We think that the students and professors, who wished to hear something new, may have probably gotten disappointed. In the material posted on the website of the ministry of economy of Armenia we may read, “R. Houseman concluded shortly his lecture on the secret of economic development in the following way – the clue is the formation of an active and diversified economy with the realization of new ideas and notions.” Is there any secret in his conclusion? Anyone, who is at least little interested in this, can say no. Was it worth inviting and bringing a senior-age expert from the other side of the world to come and certify here what Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan has been saying for a year now? Indeed, the officials of our economic block needed a whole global crisis to understand this fact but many economists have been speaking about the diversification of the economy for many years. Let us mention that after the crisis the World Bank and other international structures also started to speak about this. Moreover, the economic officials of Armenia, in front of who these changes had been taking place, suddenly started to notice that the flaws of the economy and the existence of oligopolies. Afterwards, our authorities have started to speak more actively about all this. As though the culprit of all this is the government of Mozambique. In all this there is another interesting hue. Have you noticed that now they have started to speak more actively of diversification than the struggle against monopolies? The reason is that the crisis caused a drastic slump in the real estate market and as a result the construction rates decreased and the nature in its turn caused a 23% slump to the agriculture. And it turned out that our economy got gradually and slightly diversified and the ratio of agriculture and construction was reduced in the structure of the GDP. As a matter of fact, nothing is being done in terms of fight against monopolies and oligopolies. According to the 2010-2011 international competition report, released two-three days ago Armenia among the 139 surveyed countries occupies the 138th place with the index of efficiency of fight against monopolies. This says everything about us. We have realized that the fight against oligopolies is going to stay only on paper when the Prime Minister stated that the fight against oligopolies doesn’t mean fight against oligarchs. And what do we have now? We have 4% economic growth, which is an index below average among CIS states. We are not producing anything new and exportation and industry grow mainly at the expense of growth of price of mineral resources. We are still having remittances from abroad, which gradually grow. This means that the country is still remaining on the “needle of remittances,” which was temporarily replaced by the loans from foreign countries. As a result, slowly but firmly the AMD is revaluating. Corruption, nepotism and bureaucracy continue. In fact there is no competition. In certain cases we notice “stubbornness.” We have to add to this the 9.6% inflation. And now please accept the freshest information. Armenian President met last weekend in Dilijan with the World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Region Philippe Le Houérou, who arrived to Armenia to participate in “Armenia After the Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities” international conference, This is what the latter said about Armenia, “I have been on this position for almost a year. I reviewed the portfolio of our programs in the region and, in my opinion, in terms of quality and implementation level the Armenian portfolio is the best. I am particularly impressed because whatever I read and studied regarding the Armenian programs – I mean statistics, etc – I actually saw in real life.” Let us recall that Le Houérou represents the World Bank. It means that this is an international structure that was calling Armenia “Caucasian tiger” due to high rates of construction. It is no problem that the tiger was humiliated during the global crisis. The most important thing is that the WB is putting its tick marks here by allotting millions of dollars to those projects, which are very convenient for money devouring.” We have numerously mentioned that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as well as other international structures cannot be more concerned about the fate of our country than we ourselves. Moreover, some economists think that the main objective of these structures is to maintain weakly developed states in constant dependence. We may or not agree with this viewpoint; we may even bring up counterarguments. But the saddest thing is that we enjoy a lot to remain in dependence (we mean monetary dependence). The ones, who don’t share this opinion, are advised to visit the World Bank Armenia website. Here they have placed the article of Tigran Sargsyan (the Armenian version is found on the website of the government), which ends with the following paragraph, “I am very pleased that in the recently held Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the IMF the Development Committee pledged to ensure that the World Bank Group is well capitalized, with sufficient resources to help its member countries meet future development challenges. I am hopeful that a general capital increase for the World Bank Group will take place after the review of the Bank’s capital needs in spring 2010. A well-capitalized and strong World Bank is our best assurance that our efforts to diversify our economy and regain solid and sustained growth will succeed.” Do you now understand what diversification they are speaking about, fight against corruption and oligopolies? The most important thing is that the World Bank has enough money to share with us. It turns out that the formula of success of economic development is the acquirement of credits and loans.