HOW TO SELL COUNTRY FOR BETTER PRICE
HAKOB BADALYAN
17:03 19/12/2012
Story from Lragir.am News:
http://www.lragir.am/index.php/eng/0/comments/view/28459
The Georgian press reported that Kazakhstan, Turkey, Azerbaijan and
Georgia will sign a memorandum on building a Europe-Caucasus-Asia
transport corridor. It may be the next regional project which excludes
Armenia and eventually deepens the isolation of Armenia.
As a state and as a society, Armenia must develop immunity against
these processes. This is not the case Armenia will not even care
what infrastructures need to be built in the region. However, at
the same time, it is clear that the efforts of Armenia to present
those infrastructures as lines of demarcation for the region are
not meaningful. They need to be continued but they should not be the
ultimate goal and the only focus. Furthermore, it will first of all
harm Armenia, deepening despair and creating an impression that a loop
of roads and pipes is woven around Armenia which will suffocate us.
Having instilled this feeling, fertile ground is prepared to generate
this idea in Armenia and in order to survive and not to be left out
of regional infrastructures Armenia needs to approve proposals on
compromise over Karabakh and resolve the issue.
In the long run, Armenia has been dominated by this thinking for
another two decades. Certainly when Vartan Oskanian was the foreign
minister, he put forth the thesis of developing for another 100 years
in a blockade but the government he was part of did not take any step
to build up on this thesis.
And in order to develop in a blockade for another 200 years the economy
should not be made dependent on remittances emptying the pockets of
citizens living on remittances and harming local production through
exchange rate juggling. Instead of making the economy dependent on
building it should have been better to use the fast rates of growth and
favorable economic environment and take steps towards diversification
of economy through innovation. Both internal macroeconomic indices
and global favorable conditions enabled this.
It required practical steps towards law enforcement and morality,
social and state life should be based on such legal and spiritual
values as law, constitution, freedom, decency, modesty, harmony with
nature and so on.
Instead, some people, including some foreign officials and Armenian
businessmen, make huge profits from "elite" building leaving behind
them the balloon of double digit economic growth instead of development
prospects.
The problem of Armenia is not that Armenia is left out of regional
projects. The problem of Armenia is that a significant part of the
government and political forces consider it to be the problem of
Armenia and generate public moods through direct or indirect means.
It is beyond discussion that roads and open borders are better than the
contrary. There is no matter of discussion. However, it is necessary
to take into consideration the existing reality, the geographical
situation, the geopolitical tendencies, strategies.
Armenia has no right to link its development to communication with
Turkey and Azerbaijan because these countries will never stop thinking
on destroying the Armenian factor. The strategy of these countries
will never stop perceiving Armenia as a wedge, as a hostile country.
Hence, Armenia has no right to make compromises over Karabakh and
the legal and political aspects of the Armenian-Turkish issue for the
sake of communications, as well as to build its economic strategy on
other transport components. I repeat this is not the same to deny or
refuse those components. For Armenia they can be additional components
because in strategic terms they will be temporary and they will be
posed to the danger of failure due to objective and subjective reasons,
considering also the complicated geopolitical layers of the region.
Armenia has to find a model for development in blockade or as the
Russian saying is, hope for the best but be ready for the worst. The
axis of the Armenian economy can be the branches in which the
transportation component is the least. Those are the innovative
branches and closed production cycles. However, along with this,
it is necessary to change public consciousness and values, framework
and content of the so-called elite, and establishing law and morality,
free competition as indefeasible values, all the necessary conditions
for the implementation of the creative potential of the human resource
to enable every citizen to feel to be the master of their country
independent from their status.
A country with a population of less than three million has no right not
to achieve this status, especially provided the double potential of the
Diaspora. And if the achievement fails or there is no wish and will in
the ruling elite, let nobody have illusions that open infrastructures
will safeguard the development of economy. They will develop the ruling
criminal and oligarchic system breathing in it the second life and
will at best enable the system to sell the country at a better price.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
HAKOB BADALYAN
17:03 19/12/2012
Story from Lragir.am News:
http://www.lragir.am/index.php/eng/0/comments/view/28459
The Georgian press reported that Kazakhstan, Turkey, Azerbaijan and
Georgia will sign a memorandum on building a Europe-Caucasus-Asia
transport corridor. It may be the next regional project which excludes
Armenia and eventually deepens the isolation of Armenia.
As a state and as a society, Armenia must develop immunity against
these processes. This is not the case Armenia will not even care
what infrastructures need to be built in the region. However, at
the same time, it is clear that the efforts of Armenia to present
those infrastructures as lines of demarcation for the region are
not meaningful. They need to be continued but they should not be the
ultimate goal and the only focus. Furthermore, it will first of all
harm Armenia, deepening despair and creating an impression that a loop
of roads and pipes is woven around Armenia which will suffocate us.
Having instilled this feeling, fertile ground is prepared to generate
this idea in Armenia and in order to survive and not to be left out
of regional infrastructures Armenia needs to approve proposals on
compromise over Karabakh and resolve the issue.
In the long run, Armenia has been dominated by this thinking for
another two decades. Certainly when Vartan Oskanian was the foreign
minister, he put forth the thesis of developing for another 100 years
in a blockade but the government he was part of did not take any step
to build up on this thesis.
And in order to develop in a blockade for another 200 years the economy
should not be made dependent on remittances emptying the pockets of
citizens living on remittances and harming local production through
exchange rate juggling. Instead of making the economy dependent on
building it should have been better to use the fast rates of growth and
favorable economic environment and take steps towards diversification
of economy through innovation. Both internal macroeconomic indices
and global favorable conditions enabled this.
It required practical steps towards law enforcement and morality,
social and state life should be based on such legal and spiritual
values as law, constitution, freedom, decency, modesty, harmony with
nature and so on.
Instead, some people, including some foreign officials and Armenian
businessmen, make huge profits from "elite" building leaving behind
them the balloon of double digit economic growth instead of development
prospects.
The problem of Armenia is not that Armenia is left out of regional
projects. The problem of Armenia is that a significant part of the
government and political forces consider it to be the problem of
Armenia and generate public moods through direct or indirect means.
It is beyond discussion that roads and open borders are better than the
contrary. There is no matter of discussion. However, it is necessary
to take into consideration the existing reality, the geographical
situation, the geopolitical tendencies, strategies.
Armenia has no right to link its development to communication with
Turkey and Azerbaijan because these countries will never stop thinking
on destroying the Armenian factor. The strategy of these countries
will never stop perceiving Armenia as a wedge, as a hostile country.
Hence, Armenia has no right to make compromises over Karabakh and
the legal and political aspects of the Armenian-Turkish issue for the
sake of communications, as well as to build its economic strategy on
other transport components. I repeat this is not the same to deny or
refuse those components. For Armenia they can be additional components
because in strategic terms they will be temporary and they will be
posed to the danger of failure due to objective and subjective reasons,
considering also the complicated geopolitical layers of the region.
Armenia has to find a model for development in blockade or as the
Russian saying is, hope for the best but be ready for the worst. The
axis of the Armenian economy can be the branches in which the
transportation component is the least. Those are the innovative
branches and closed production cycles. However, along with this,
it is necessary to change public consciousness and values, framework
and content of the so-called elite, and establishing law and morality,
free competition as indefeasible values, all the necessary conditions
for the implementation of the creative potential of the human resource
to enable every citizen to feel to be the master of their country
independent from their status.
A country with a population of less than three million has no right not
to achieve this status, especially provided the double potential of the
Diaspora. And if the achievement fails or there is no wish and will in
the ruling elite, let nobody have illusions that open infrastructures
will safeguard the development of economy. They will develop the ruling
criminal and oligarchic system breathing in it the second life and
will at best enable the system to sell the country at a better price.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress