168: Investors see what is happening in Armenia for investors and investors

Recently, Nikol Pashinyan sent the President of the Central Bank and the Minister of Finance to participate in an international conference with the aim of presenting Armenia’s investment attractiveness and promoting investment attraction.

In order to attract investors, the Minister of Finance spoke at length about how stable the macroeconomic environment of Armenia is and what policies and reforms the government is implementing to ensure long-term economic growth.

It will be seen later whether the participants of the conference believed what the minister said or not. But it is a fact that what the authorities have done is in no way compatible with common sense. On the one hand, they are trying to present Armenia as an attractive country for investments on international platforms, on the other hand, they are doing things within the country that do not fit into its framework in any way.

Investors do not invest following the beautiful words and presentations of officials. They also see what is happening with investors and business in general in Armenia. Before making investments, investors are not primarily interested in the macroeconomic stability of the country, but how well their investments will be protected.

The authorities do not even hide that they are carrying out political reprisals against businesses.

At conferences, they talk about a favorable environment for investments, but inside they attack investors. Everyone can see how law enforcement officers and tax officials have been raiding companies owned by Gagik Tsarukyan, conducting searches, closing down productions, stopping their activities, and creating security problems.

The issue here is not Gagik Tsarukyan’s personality at all. One can love or dislike him, accept or not accept him, agree or disagree with his political activities and views. The problem is not that, the problem is completely different. Any investor looks at all this with a different eye. He sees that the government can use the entire state machine for political views on citizens’ businesses, he sees that state bodies can initiate criminal cases out of nowhere.

There is no guarantee that the same will not happen to others at any time.

This has become a systemic problem in Armenia and is neither the first nor the last case. We witnessed a similar phenomenon in the case of Samvel Karapetyan. Even before Samvel Karapetyan, many businesses had already faced the arbitrariness of the government within the framework of political reprisals. Now the same is happening with Gagik Tsarukyan’s businesses. Nikol Pashinyan promised and now he is taking revenge.

No matter how much the authorities try to present that they are dealing with legal processes, there is no law and legitimacy here. This is anarchy that destroys the foundations of the economy. In such conditions, what hopes can they have that there will be investments in Armenia? It is not surprising that very few investments are made in Armenia.

In the first quarter of this year, the net flows of foreign investments in the real economy amounted to only 25 billion drams or less than 70 million dollars. Compared to the previous year, they have increased by only a few hundred million drams. And it is legal when we see what kind of political reprisal is being carried out against investors and big businesses.

No serious investor will want to invest in such an environment where the future of his business will depend not on the law, but on the will of the political authorities. If the political authorities want it, the investor will work, if they don’t want it, they will close and take away the business.

When more than a dozen companies of a businessman are attacked on the same day, their activities are destroyed and disrupted, Gagik Tsarukyan is not the only victim. As a result, the economy suffers, the state budget suffers, people who work in these companies, receive salaries, and solve the social problems of their families suffer.

People who are happy that Gagik Tsarukyan’s or someone else’s businesses are closed, maybe they don’t even imagine how much damage the state and citizens suffer from it. Those companies pay billions of drams in taxes. And when they are closed, those funds do not enter the state budget, they do not become pensions and allowances, the economic programs that were supposed to be implemented with those funds are not implemented. When these companies do not work, thousands of workers become unemployed, do not receive wages, and taxes are not collected from these wages. The unpaid salary is also an unfulfilled trade, from which no more taxes are generated.

The investment reputation of the country suffers, if they still left something behind.

Investments, which should become the basis of future economic growth and development, are not received.

No investor is inclined to invest in such an intervention. And the reason for this is that law and justice have been pushed into the background in Armenia for a long time. The will of the government has become the highest law and right that can fall on the head of any investor, businessman, business and citizen.

As long as the political will of the government in Armenia can be above property rights, law and economic freedom, give up your hopes on investments, investments will remain at the level of a dream.

HAKOB KOCHARYAN

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