Almost $9 billion taken out of Armenia in 10 years
By Rashid Shirinov
Money continues outflowing Armenia, and this process sharply increased in 2017. As many as $1.02 billion were taken out of the country last year, Armenian media reported recently.
In general, over the past 10 years of Serzh Sargsyan’s presidency in Armenia, the capital outflow exceeded $8.64 billion.
Armenian media have earlier noted that $115.7 million were withdrawn from the country through private transfers in October alone. This figure shocked the public, since it was the highest indicator in recent years. During the first ten months of 2017, a total of 814.2 million were taken abroad, which is by almost $200 million more compared to the same period of 2016.
One of the main reasons for such an accelerated withdrawal of finances from the country is the activity of local oligarchs. They mostly opt to realize their projects outside of Armenia and invest in them bypassing their own country.
For example, last autumn, Armenian oligarch MP Gagik Tsarukyan transferred huge funds from the country for repair and improvement of his luxury hotel in Latvia. Obviously, luxury is expensive and therefore it is not in demand in such a poor country as Armenia. Many Armenian businessmen do not want to invest their money in their homeland and act in a similar way as Tsarukyan.
Their actions cannot be called absolutely wrong. The country should firstly create appropriate conditions for doing business, but the Armenian government still has not fulfilled this main requirement.
It is no secret that small and medium businesses in Armenia are simply dying in conditions of continuous pressure from the authorities and monopolists, and in lack of fair competition. They are being eradicated by high taxes or bribery. Industrial enterprises have long ago turned into the victims of corruption, while the survivor ones are in the hands of oligarchs.
In this regard, foreign investors also do not want to put their money in the Armenian economy. Various international statistics institutions note that it is the most monopolized country among the CIS and Eastern Europe countries. In this context, potential investors understand that the Armenian economy does not seem to have any positive prospects in the near future, and therefore prefer not to take the risk.
---
Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz