Thursday, February 10 2011 19:40
Expert: One should not expect serious investments in conditions of current economic situation in Armenia
ArmInfo. One should not expect any serious investments under conditions of the current economic situation in Armenia, Chief Executive Officer of Armenbrok investment company Aram Kayfajyan told ArmInfo. According to him, Armenia practically lacks interest business projects for foreign investments. "The interesting things for investors are already privatized", he said. Like many other experts, Kayfajyan pointed out that a lot of cases have recently been fixed, when the local entrepreneurs moved their business to neighboring Georgia, and the given tendency will intensively continue.
To note, earlier the experts of international companies confirmed the Armenian businessmen's intentions to "move business" to Georgia, which is safe from the investment point of view. In particular, when commenting on the ongoing processes in Armenia's business environment, Managing Partner of KPMG in Armenia and Georgia Andrew Cockshell said in his interview with ArmInfo that some Armenian businessmen intending to move their business to Georgia had really applied to the company for consultations. He added that more favorable conditions for business conduct were really created in Georgia than in Armenia.
In particular, in Georgia corruption is lower, tax burden is also lower, and there is less bureaucracy. Kayfajyan also said that Armenia could have used the unlimited volume of investments with due regard for its own investment potential. However, this is hindered by the high corruption level, monopolization, bureaucracy, logistics prices, customs and tax payments, inflation rate, instability of national currency, i.e. "the system in general", he said.
To recall, as compared with 2008, the volume of direct investment in Armenia dropped by more than 50% to USD730 mln in 2009.
To note, recently the Caucasian TV channel "Perviye Novosti" (First News) has made a reportage on the topic "Mass Escape of Armenian Companies to Georgia". According to the TV channel, since 1 Jan 2010 about 100 Armenian companies (70 of them LLCs), as well as 3 branches, 24 individual businessmen, and several non-commercial organizations have been registered in Georgia. The reportage said with reference to the Armenian mass media that a well-known Armenian entrepreneur, President of Grand Holding, Hrant Vardanyan, is thinking over moving his business to the neighboring country. The reason is the discrepancies with official Yerevan.
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