Thursday, April 25 2019 17:55

ArmInfo.World economic processes are becoming very dynamic, multi-vector and unpredictable, which has to periodically review the strategy and be constantly  looking for areas and effective financing projects. This thought was  expressed by the 2nd Eurasian Media Congress Andrei Belyaninov, head  of the Eurasian Development Bank, who organized the congress, which  came off today in the village of Konakovo, Tver Region.

Journalists from the EAEU countries told the forum participants that  the head of this large financial development institution, despite the  bank's significant progress in financing national projects and the  Bank's balance sheet total growth that reached $ 4.2 billion, the  issue of finding and finding priorities for funding remains as never  before. This applies primarily to the implementation of large  integration projects.  Answering the corresponding question of the  ArmInfo correspondent, Belyaninov jokingly asked to share ideas of  such projects, the deficit of which in the EEU space is unfortunately  too high. The EDB head agreed with the opinion of  ArmInfo that funding national commercial banks to finance small and  medium-sized businesses is a useful but insufficient measure for the  development of SMEs, because stable growth of this segment of the  economy depends on the presence of large enterprises, clusters, which  gather around themselves representatives of SMEs as suppliers,  contractors and consumers. In this regard, the head of the EDB  attaches great importance to ensuring close cooperation between the  Bank and the Eurasian Commission, the ministries of economy of the  EAEU countries, which would contribute to the allocation of such  industrial technological joint, related projects for financing.  This   idea was supported by the representative of the Ministry of Economic  Development of the Russian Federation Elena Kiseleva who is present  at the forum - the director of the department for the economic  cooperation department of the CIS countries. According to her, the  capacity of the economy from the point of view of the "single joint  product output" of the EAEU countries today is 1%, which does  not at all meet the tasks set by the Union or its economic potential.  She cited the example of the EU, in which joint products exceed 10%  of the EU countries market capacity. , and for now we are limited to horizontal tasks - we are  increasing the regulatory field, creating legislative and legal  connections, while it is time to think about implementing integrated  high-quality industrial and technological projects. The opinion of  the representative of the Ministry of Economic Development is not  groundless. In fact, the lion's share of the EDB projects so far  concerns the construction of infrastructures - roads, pipelines - in  the beneficiary countries, which is also not insignificant, but not  enough at all. For example, the bank undertook to finance in Astana  the construction of the Astana pipeline for 102 billion tenge or the  construction of a certain section of the North-South highway in  Armenia for $ 150 million. The bank's management is well aware that  parallel to infrastructure projects, it is now more than ever  necessary to take on serious programs that can increase the  international competitiveness of the EAEU countries, since the of the Economic Union is pressing the problem of interaction  with foreign partners and at the same time Stay competitive.  Unfortunately, Belyaninov himself voiced this, the bank today is  criticized for not working actively in the small markets of  Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. The bank is actually limited to some  infrastructure projects and funding programs for local banks. But  what if these countries have nothing to offer the EDB. There are no  effective industrial programs, projects, neither integration, nor  even national.  The frankness of the head of the Bank, in fact,  struck many journalists sitting in the hall. He stressed that he  considers insufficient the efforts that the bank has been able to  devote to the integration of countries during these 1.5 years of its  leadership. We must pay tribute to the head of the EDB and in fact  take a critical look at the inability of the economic authorities of  the countries - members of the EDB to offer what they need, which  will be able to improve the quality of their economies.

An important problem of the so-called "external contour" of trade of  the EAEU countries is the entry of products of the Union countries  into the adjacent interested markets. Actually, only one Vietnamese  project is working. The signing of an agreement on a free trade zone  (FTA) with Vietnam allowed the EEU to significantly increase trade  with this country. In 2017, an increase of 40%, in the last 2018th -  by 20%. The turnover reached half a billion US dollars. Next come  Serbia, Iran, Egypt, India, Singapore, which can be an effective hub  for all countries of Southeast Asia, and in the final account -  China. But the opening of markets for these countries, and especially  for China, entails enormous risks, since the economies of the EAEU  countries are not yet ready to compete with them.This was announced  at the forum by another speaker - Chairman of the EEU Business  Council Committee Vladimir Salamatov. In his opinion, it is extremely  dangerous to open up to the world without ensuring the first two  echelons - namely, the competitiveness of the national economy  itself, as well as competitiveness within the framework of the common  market of the EAEU. Moreover, speaking of China, this is a rather  complicated country in terms of the possibility of protecting  intellectual property and trademarks. She is able to perfectly  imitate products and bypass any protective measures in conditions of  low cost of their products. So, before taking under the visor,  reporting on the internationalization of the EEU, you need to think  big about the consequences of the conjugation of markets. The EAEU  countries are not really competitive yet, and any extremely liberal  approach to open competition with markets such as India or China can  have bad consequences. The only market that is more or less not  dangerous today is the extremely conservative and closed market of  Iran.  And so far Armenia does not need to hope for it, at least  until Iran changes its policy on extreme protectionism and "internal  Iranian" import substitution, on the activation of which the  perennial peasant and all the toughening US sanctions are pushing.