Author: Chakrian Hovsep

Living standard of middle class in Armenia is declining: Norvik experts

2009-03-12 17:55:00

ArmInfo. In the last seven years the living standard of the middle
class in Armenia has been on decline, says the analytcal department of
Norvik Universal Credit Organization.

This may lead to irreversible changes: outflow of qualified specialists
to western countries and economic decline as middle class is the most
active section of the civil society and it is the most
sensitive to changes in the economic situation. Now that Armenia is
facing financial, banking, industrial, commercial and other crises, the
local authorities will hardly provide official statistics on the
incomes of the middle class. Meanwhile, experts say that in the coming
years the revenues of the middle class in Armenia will drop. If they
are right we may face a crisis comparable with the Great Depression of
the 1930s and will need at least five years to overcome the
consequences of the economic decline.

The consumer agiotage observed over the last few years is not so
useful, and now that consumption is abruptly falling, a social shock
will be observed. At the same time, the specialists pay attention to
the poor layers of population as well. They think the state of this
layer’s representatives may become even worse in the process of
economic decline and unemployment growth. At the same time, the experts
think that if the government works out special programs, the state of
this population may develop in a different course. In particular, the
middle class will be formed from poorer layers of population. The
company’s analysts think that to support both the middle class and
poorer layers of population, it is necessary to decrease prices in the
consumer market by increasing competitiveness in the market of
essentials. This will decrease the financial load on home economics and
the inflation level.

To recall, Norvik UCO is the Armenian branch of Latvian-Icelandic JSC
NORVIK BANKA. It was registered and licensed by the Central Bank of
Armenia in July 2006 and has been operating since September 2008.

The Messenger, Georgia
March 12 2009

Armenia might benefit from the Karsi-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku railway

By Messenger Staff
Thursday, March 12

Former Foreign Minister of Armenia Vardan Oskanian thinks that the
construction and operation of the Karsi-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku
railway would cause no more negative results for Armenia than the
closed Armenian-Turkish border does.

Moreover the former Minister thinks that Armenia can use this railway
connection with Turkey, which passes through Georgia as it has been
using the motorway connection. He says that Turkey has realised that
blocking the border is not effective, and that’s why it has started
negotiations on opening the border.

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 12 2009

Parliament encourages Turkey to dig deeper into Ergenekon

Members of the European Parliament held a debate yesterday on the 2008
accession negotiations with Turkey as they prepared to vote on a
report that calls on Turkey to seriously focus on the Ergenekon
network’s probable role in unresolved murders, including the
assassination of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in January
2007.

Ergenekon, a neo-nationalist group accused of involvement in plans to
stage a violent uprising against the government, was discovered at the
end of an investigation that came upon the heels of a police raid in
June 2007 which uncovered an arms depot in a house in ?Ä?°stanbul’s
?Ã?mraniye district. The prosecutor in the Ergenekon case has said
the group worked to create disorder and chaos through various violent
acts so that the public would be willing to accept a military
intervention to restore order.

The group is suspected of involvement in the murder of three Christian
missionaries in Malatya in 2007; the 2006 murder of a priest in the
northeastern city of Trabzon; the murder of Dink, editor-in-chief of
the bilingual Agos newspaper in 2007; a 2006 attack on the Council of
State; and a grenade attack on the Cumhuriyet daily in 2006.

The debate at the European Parliament came a day after the ?Ä?°stanbul
Prosecutor’s Office submitted on Tuesday an additional indictment in
the trial of Ergenekon, with members from various state agencies, the
military, politics, the business world, academia, the media and other
civilian sectors, charged with plotting to overthrow the government.

Currently, 86 suspects have been indicted in a 2,455-page document,
made public last summer. The trial started in late October of last
year. However, since the completion of the first indictment, dozens of
others have been detained and arrested, though some have been released
pending trial.

The new indictment is expected to bring charges against some of the
suspects recently detained during the ongoing investigation.

The European Parliament "welcomes the beginning of the trial against
those accused of being members of the Ergenekon criminal organization,
encourages the authorities to continue investigations and to fully
uncover the organization’s networks which reach into the state
structures, is concerned about reports regarding the treatment of
defendants in this case, urges the Turkish authorities to provide them
with a fair trial and to adhere strictly to the principles of the rule
of law," says the report, drawn up by Dutch Christian Democrat
European parliamentarian Ria Oomen-Ruijten.

Last month, members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European
Parliament adopted the draft report by 65 votes to one, with four
abstentions.

The report by Oomen-Ruijten also asserts that "for Turkey and its 71
million people, the main concern is the slowdown in reform for the
third successive year," calling on Ankara to prove its political will
for the reform process.

12 March 2009, Thursday
TODAY’S ZAMAN ANKARA / ESKI?Å?EHIR

Premier: Armenia transfers to strict budget saving measures

YEREVAN, March 12. /ARKA/. Armenian Premier Tigran Sargsyan said it is
necessary that Armenia transfers to a strict budget saving measures.

`It is necessary to save state funds and make expenditures in
proportion with out incomes as GDP indicators precipitously
deteriorated as of the end of January. We should be prepared for the
worst scenario,’ the Premier said at the government meeting Thursday.

A 0.7% economic decline was recorded in Armenia in January 2009 as
compared with the same period of last year. GDP index-deflator was
99.7% in January 2009 against January 2008.

The Premier said that currently the economic situation is uncertain in
the country and nobody knows what further developments to expect. Under
these circumstances, Armenia is turning to quarterly budgeting.

`We will be summarizing the results and planning expenditures for next
quarter on quarterly basis, the Premier said urging to take a careful
approach in making expenditures and avoid the expenses that can be
postponed.

The Premier stressed that savings approach is not to be applied to
social expenditures, pensions, benefits, salaries, and defense
expenses. This will create certain difficulties both for internal and
external operations, but they should be overcome, Sargsyan said.

He also pointed out that Armenia has no alternate way as development of
the world economic situat
ion follows not an optimistic scenario and the
forecasts given by the WB and the IMF were revised four times during
the last month.

`Nobody can provide clear forecasts today, that is why we should work
in a prompt response mode, save funds and spend only to the extent we
can collect,’ the Premier said.

Armenian Government made a decision to re-allocate the country’s state
budget for 2009 and to suspend elaboration of the mid-term spending
program for 2010-2012. N.V. `0–

PanARMENIAN.Net

Norayr Adalyan’s `Phantom’ novel published in German
12.03.2009 13:55 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Modern Armenian writer Norayr Adalyan’s `Phantom’
novel was published in German in 2008.

The book titled Suffering and Love by Glare Frankfurt-based publishing
house, narrates sufferings of a judge, who feels love for the accused
in murder.

Presently, Norayr Adalyan writes a book about absurd and fantastic
thoughts of a young woman.

`I like just sitting in a café and watching people. It’s
possible to understand them without understanding their language,’
Adalyan told Allgemeine Zeitung.

Global financial crisis saves Teghut forest from cutting

2009-03-11 11:56:00

ArmInfo. Tree cutting in Teghut forest has been almost stopped because
of the global financial crisis which hinders implementation of the
programme on development of Teghut copper-molybdenum deposit in the
north of Armenia, Director of Armenian Copper Programme metallurgical
company, Gagik Arzumanyan, told journalists.

"We have not yet received fully-fledged financing for Teghut and the
preparatory work is still underway", he said. The company director
added that 20 Ha of Teghut forest were cut in 2008, although 35 Ha were
agreed on. At present, 21 Ha of wood were cut. According to G.
Arzumanyan, it is scheduled to start preparing for exploitation of the
Teghut deposit in 2011, according to the programme. The director added
that the credit for implementation of this programme will be expectedly
received from VTB Russian bank.

To note, it is scheduled to cut 157 Ha of wood in Teghut during the
next 12 years.

NASDAQ OMX Armenia ready assist companies with IPO

YEREVAN, March 11. /ARKA/. NASDAQ OMX Armenia is ready to assist
companies in entering the initial public offering (IPO) market.

`We have great expectations of the first company’s entry of the IPO.
Also, the stock exchange will assist any company, any issuer with this
process,’ said Armen Melikyan, Director General of NASDAQ OMX Armenia.

The Armenbroke Company, underwriter for the Artsakh Hydro OJSC,
announced the maiden initial public offering of the energy-generating
company’s shares to the amount of 3.45bln AMD (over $9.5mln). A total
of 3,285,715 shares (1,050 AMD each) are being placed.

`This is the first experience and we have to render assistance because
it will be the first step for other companies to enter the IPO market,’
Melikyan said.

He stressed the fact that, in the case of shares, it is not dividends,
but free circulation of securities on the stock exchange without any
restrictions, that plays a decisive role. If the information on prices
is available to the public, the market price will be real.

`This means that the cost of shares will be increasing, which is of
importance for market formation,’ Melikyan said. He added that the
Government is interested in the development of capital market, evidence
thereof being the issue of shares of one of the best enterprises.

Melikyan pointed out that, if the company fails to float the entire
issue and attract the necessary funds from the first attempt, further
issues will enable it to do that.

As regards the Nagorno-Karabakh company’s entry to the Armenian stock
market, Melikyan said that stock exchanges are not involved in
politics. `We are only interested in business and contribute to the
development of business environment and capital market,’ Melikyan said.

The representative of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA), Issue
Executive Karen Hakobyan pointed out that the CBA and the stock
exchange are implementing joint measures to develop the capital market,
with the most important role assigned to the creation of new attractive
instruments for the Armenian market.

He said that 11 bond issues were floated last year, with no IPO
registers.

The initiative of the Artsakh Hydro Company has no precedents, not only
because this is the first large-scale IPO in Armenia, but also because
an attempt was made to attract as many foreign investors as possible,’
Hakobyan said.

He pointed out that companies’ transparent activities are the only
important condition for their entering the IPO market.

Ad of March 9, over 200 people subscribed to the shares of the Artsakh
Hydro CJSC worth a total of 150mln.

Armenbroke estimates the return on the capital invested in Artsakh
Hydro CJSC shares at 14%, with all the further flows considered. P.T.

Armenia’s premier, newly-appointed ebrd yerevan office head discuss
cooperation prospects

YEREVAN, March 11. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Prime Minster Tigran Sargsyan met
today with newly-appointed Head of the EBRD Yerevan Office Valery
Razlogov to discuss prospects for cooperation, the RA Government’s
press service reports.

EBRD Director for the South Caucasus Michael Davey and Michael
Weinstein, former head of the EBRD Yerevan Office, were also present at
the meeting.

The focus of the discussions was further cooperation between Armenia
and EBRD.

Touching upon Armenia’s effective collaboration with the bank, Sargsyan
stressed the importance of the joint efforts to boost small and
medium-scale businesses, as well as Armenia’s private sector and
infrastructures amid the global recession.

Congratulating Razlogov on his new appointment, the Armenian premier
expressed a hope he would contribute to Armenia-EBRD cooperation.

Sargsyan also thanked Weinstein for his great contribution to
Armenia-EBRD partnership.

Armenia joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on
December 7, 1992 with ?¬10mln equity participation. EBRD has invested
?¬202mln for 52 programs in Armenia.

In 2009, the bank plans to assign ?¬80mln for Armenia (compared to
?¬63mln in 2008).

This year, the bank plans to allocate ?¬7bln for its partners around the
world, exceeding the planned ?¬5.5bln.=2
0`0–

PanARMENIAN.Net

Turkey seeks Iran’s assistance in combating terrorism
11.03.2009 20:28 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Terrorism is a decisive factor in Turkey’s foreign
policy, and she will spare no effort and means to fight against it,
said Abdullah Gyull, Turkey’s president in Tehran at the Forum held by
the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) member-states. He appealed
to ECO members, Iran first of all to play a more active role in
fighting against terrorism in the region.

Turkey’s President also expressed his hopes that ECO will be able to
find ways to settle the Arab and Israeli conflict. Turkish media also
reported that Abdullah Gyull passed US President, Obama’s personal
message on to President Ahmadinezhad. Turkey pretended to play the
role of a mediator in rebuilding American and Iranian
relations. Although the US State Department has already denied the
fact of the `so-called message to Iran’s president through Gyull.’

ECO was formed in 1985 by Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. Later,
Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and
Kazakhstan joined the organization.

PanARMENIAN.Net

STAR stands for consumer-business-state cooperation
09.03.2009 12:01 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ STAR supermarket network’s strategy envisages
domestic production increase in 2009.

`After establishment of a new supermarket, we will make a pause to
study preferences of our consumers,’ STAR executive director Vahan
Kerobyan told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter after the opening ceremony.

He said the management is researching the market for development of
STAR brand output.

`Dram devaluation resulted in rise in prices for imported goods. But I
want to emphasize that the prices for STAR brand goods will not go
up,’ Kerobyan said.

`STAR stands for consumer-business-state cooperation. Serving 25
thousand consumers every day, our network can help the state control
the market prices. For their part, the authorities should introduce
amendments in the Internal Revenue Code and let domestic manufacturers
develop,’ he added.

Kerobyan also informed that 2 more supermarkets will open in Yerevan
this year.