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SINGAPORE: AN ORCHID AND SOME ECONOMIC LESSONS FOR ARMENIA'S SERZH SARGSYAN
Giorgi Lomsadze
EurasiaNet.org
March 29 2012
NY
Armenia has joined the band of Caucasus explorers headed to Singapore
in search of a holy grail that supposedly transforms developing
economies into developed.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan will be in Singapore until March 31
to ease bilateral visa rules and attract investment from the Southeast
Asian country, but also to learn how the island state turned from a
malarial swamp (as one writer for The Economist put it) into one of
the world's most developed economies.
Sargsyan received a warm welcome. First, an orchid was named after
him. Then, his counterpart, Tony Tan Keng Yam, took him out to dinner.
The Singaporean leader kindly offered to share the Singaporean recipe
for economic success, which, members of Sargsyan's Republican Party
of Armenia hope, after being mixed with a few local ingredients,
can help fast-track the Caucasus country into the developed world.
Tan also remembered the good old 1810s, when the British established
a free trade port in Singapore, which attracted many traders from all
over the world, including Armenian merchants. "Armenians were among
the first traders to arrive," Tan reassured Sargsyan.
But, as The Economist points out, the colonial period is as important
in forming what Singapore is today as were the past 50 years of
deregulation and business-friendly reforms. "Singapore's very unusual
history will be impossible to emulate or reproduce, and others should
just quit trying, especially those who are trying in a hurry - say,
within the political lifetime of a single visionary," The Economist
wrote.
But try telling this to wide-eyed Singapore fans in the Caucasus;
especially Georgia, Armenia's northern neighbor, where much of the
economic discourse boils down to how to be more like Singapore.
Reforms in Armenia and Georgia have done little to protect the two
from domestic and international economic oscillations. For both,
transformation into a free-market paradise with skyscrapers remains
a distant prospect.
As of yet, the only place in the Caucasus that has not fallen for
Singapore's charms is Azerbaijan. But it has oil and gas.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Giorgi Lomsadze
EurasiaNet.org
March 29 2012
NY
Armenia has joined the band of Caucasus explorers headed to Singapore
in search of a holy grail that supposedly transforms developing
economies into developed.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan will be in Singapore until March 31
to ease bilateral visa rules and attract investment from the Southeast
Asian country, but also to learn how the island state turned from a
malarial swamp (as one writer for The Economist put it) into one of
the world's most developed economies.
Sargsyan received a warm welcome. First, an orchid was named after
him. Then, his counterpart, Tony Tan Keng Yam, took him out to dinner.
The Singaporean leader kindly offered to share the Singaporean recipe
for economic success, which, members of Sargsyan's Republican Party
of Armenia hope, after being mixed with a few local ingredients,
can help fast-track the Caucasus country into the developed world.
Tan also remembered the good old 1810s, when the British established
a free trade port in Singapore, which attracted many traders from all
over the world, including Armenian merchants. "Armenians were among
the first traders to arrive," Tan reassured Sargsyan.
But, as The Economist points out, the colonial period is as important
in forming what Singapore is today as were the past 50 years of
deregulation and business-friendly reforms. "Singapore's very unusual
history will be impossible to emulate or reproduce, and others should
just quit trying, especially those who are trying in a hurry - say,
within the political lifetime of a single visionary," The Economist
wrote.
But try telling this to wide-eyed Singapore fans in the Caucasus;
especially Georgia, Armenia's northern neighbor, where much of the
economic discourse boils down to how to be more like Singapore.
Reforms in Armenia and Georgia have done little to protect the two
from domestic and international economic oscillations. For both,
transformation into a free-market paradise with skyscrapers remains
a distant prospect.
As of yet, the only place in the Caucasus that has not fallen for
Singapore's charms is Azerbaijan. But it has oil and gas.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress