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Azernews, 3 October 2017

Rashid Shirinov

The Armenian economy has long been heading towards the default and the process intensified recently, but the government lacks a tool to fix the issue.

Couple of weeks ago, the country’s government organized Armenia-Diaspora Forum in Yerevan, where officials and representatives of the ruling party talked a lot about the “great” business environment in Armenia and conditions allegedly created for entrepreneurs from the Diaspora.

However, the businessmen have a different opinion.

“Unfortunately, the rules do not change,” Armenian businesswoman Silva Hambartsumyan has told Lragir news agency, answering the question whether she agrees that Armenia has no attractive investment conditions.

Hambartsumyan added that she does not believe in economic growth in Armenia: “Is it possible to talk about growth while selling fruits and vegetables?”

Many members of the Diaspora, who began to invest in this country when it gained independence, very soon realized that they were wrong in trusting their money to the criminals in the Armenian government. In this regard, the aid of the Diaspora dropped dramatically in the 2000s, and has almost completely disappeared in recent years.

“They should deal not with show, but with economy. There are a lot of investors, but many are afraid to invest in Armenia. Also, there are many of those who invested and lost money,” Hambartsumyan noted. The entrepreneur added that favorable investment conditions in Armenia are created for individual people, for example, brother of Armenian Premier Minister Samvel Karapetyan.

Today, many entrepreneurs of Armenia emphasize that it is impossible to build a developed economy and foreign trade based on fruits and vegetables. But a worse problem is that even the agricultural opportunities get limited in Armenia day by day. Rates in this sphere drop uncontrollably, and given this and the agricultural monopoly existing in Armenia, one can expect further decline in this sphere, as well as in the whole economy of the country.