“ONE SHOULD COMPLETELY FORGET ABOUT IT,” ABOUT SERZH SARGSYAN’S PROMISE
DECEMBER 3, 2012 17:16
“One should completely forget about saying that Serzh Sargsyan has
fulfilled his promise,” Vahagn Khachatryan, the Armenian National
Congress (ANC) member said this when reminded him that
President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan had promised in
his election program, “Normalization of the economy should not impede
formation and development of business, on the contrary, it should
contribute to ensuring equal conditions, supporting development and
reducing risks.”
Then V. Khachatryan went into detail: “The president has failed to
fulfill that task. One doesn’t just make promises; one should create
conditions for an atmosphere of competition. Whereas in our country,
there is no competition not only in the economy, but also in the
other fields. The Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) easily restored
one party’s monopoly of the Soviet times, but in a worse way. There
was a communist party, a state property and the state’s monopoly
at that time. The Republican Party easily established one party’s
monopoly led by the RPA, but it has private monopoly in all fields,
which has led to the lack of competition. Reasons are political,
since if there is competition, a middle class will be formed, which
is economically independent, and one won’t be able to bribe those
people with five thousand drams during elections. That is also the
reason why poverty gradually increases.”
Economist Tatul Manaseryan doesn’t agree with this opinion and thinks
that one shouldn’t go to extremes. He stated: “There are rather
serious problems with business competition, and those are problems
that cannot be solved overnight, as many countries’ experience shows.
Let us note that there is certain progress, since it is hard to imagine
that inspections could be conducted in any oligarch’s enterprises in
the past, and abuse of office could be revealed there.
This is progress. However, one shouldn’t be satisfied by that,
since normalizing circulation of documentation is very important to
prevent monopolies and abuse of power in the market and to be able
to create equal conditions of competition. This is the reason that
some representatives of big businesses don’t give bonds to small and
medium enterprises, which will allow closing the circle.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN