Interview taken with member of the coordinating staff of the “Armenia
2020” project Ruben Vartanyan. Ruben Vartanyan plays a large part in
the Russian stock market. In 1992, he has been the chief director of
the “Troyka Dialog” (Trio Dialog) company and since 1996, he serves as
the president of the company. In 1997, Ruben has been both the chief
director and president.
Mr. Ruben Vartanyan is currently a member of the Board of Owners of the
“Troyka Dialog” (Trio Dialog) company and president of the company’s
supervising committee for the Management of Primary Resources (MPR).
“168 hours”: “Although many people appreciate what you are
doing, however, they believe that the project can not be implemented in
Armenia because corruption in the country will not allow for any major
steps to be taken.”
Ruben Vartanyan: “First of all, there is corruption everywhere.
It can be seen in any part of the world, it does not limit itself to,
for example, Finland or Botswana. Who cares if there is corruption?
Does that mean that countries can not develop? Of course they can.
Let’s take for example South Korea. There was corruption there also but
as we all know, that country developed over the course of twenty years.
There are many issues which need to be solved before seeing any actual
development in Armenia, but there are no real obstacles. It all depends
on whether we want to do it or not. We must ask ourselves what we want,
where we are going and what kind of country we want to create. The
developments in South Korea are an excellent example for Armenia.”
“168 hours”: “The speakers during the conference spoke about
Armenia as not a country for making large investments, but rather, a
country where there can be a lot of export. In your opinion, what is it
that Armenia has that can be exported and actually get sold in the
large international market?”
Ruben Vartanyan: “We saw about 22 different courses to take in
the field of economy. Armenia has a chance to advance by taking two of
the courses that we have chosen and by doing so, economy will increase
by 30 percent. The Armenian market is small, but market as a whole
costs $150 million dollars of which 30% comes up to be $50 million
dollars. Armenia does not have any chances of making that much money.
We can not say for sure that Armenia can be the leader in making cars,
but there are some fields of economy like tourism and diamond
production where Armenians can play a large part.”
“168 hours”: “In his speech, Peter Kralich talked about not
selling national establishments to foreigners and he made it clear that
by doing that, Armenia will be losing its right to make decisions on
its own. Today, Armenia has already sold some establishments which are
of strategic importance to foreign countries. How do you evaluate that?”
Ruben Vartanyan: “While planning this project, our staff did not
really think about whether privatization is right or not. This is what
we have and we just look at everything through the “let’s move forward”
principle. Of course, there are many things that needed to be done in a
different way so that we wouldn’t have to go through all of this now,
but that is in the past. Life goes on. Many things have been done
because they had to be done so that we wouldn’t be faced with many
difficulties. Of course, there are also some things which have been
done the right way. We are more concerned about the future of Armenia
and we don’t pay much attention to what has happened in the past. It is
obvious that since Armenia has some capital, the state budget is not
looking too bad. We keep asking ourselves why the government did what
it did and claim that we should have kept what we had. But let’s not
forget what kind of situation Armenia was in ten years ago and what it
took to make those decisions. That is why, it is a little hard to
answer that “Was it right or wrong” question. So, I will not give an
answer.”
“168 hours”: “Many factories were sold to Russia according to
the “Property in exchange for loan” formula, however, we have not heard
about what became of those factories during the past couple of years.
How do you explain that and why aren’t they making investments in
Armenia?”
Ruben Vartanyan: “That is a difficult issue. Those factories
have been given to Russia in exchange for loans and the consumer
receiving those factories can not come to terms with the person in
charge of production. The ministry who has received a factory can not
run the business, so it has to find someone who can. Basically, there
are many issues at hand and this is not only typical of Armenia. As far
as I know, there have been many investments made in the copper ardent
factory. Finally, we can not really talk about making large investments
in Armenia when we don’t even have oil, etc.”
“168 hours’: “It turns out that tourism is the only field of economy which can develop in Armenia.”
Ruben Vartanyan: “When you are a small country, you can not go
ahead and consume everything. For small countries like Armenia, it is
very important to make the right decisions. The businessman should know
in what fields to consume in order to get a large amount of profit and
help the country develop.”