ArmInfo.Over 34 years, we have failed to formulate a simple sentence - what is the vision for the development of our country, is there such a vision? Economist, founder of the Alternative Research Center, professor Tatul Manaseryan expressed a similar opinion during a press conference on June 25.
He complained that Armenia lacks a national agenda, national priorities. You can wake up on the wrong foot and decide which union Armenia should join - the EAEU or the EU. But if there was a national agenda, Manaseryan admitted that perhaps Armenia would focus on the Arab world in the context of activating economic ties. "What will the EU give us? What will the EAEU give us? It will give us nothing! Move, work! There are national ideas, but we need to set national economic goals and go for them. And it doesn't matter which government will do it," the economist was indignant. He noted that when working out different scenarios, any government can be removed, but the problem is that none of us can imagine what will happen tomorrow, how the state and the people will move forward. Professor Manaseryan also complained that the country does not conduct in-depth analyses of its existing potential, including in the context of human resources. He asked whether we know how many engineers, doctors, etc. there are in the country. "And since we don't know, then who are these programs for? Maybe we want to create a space research center? Do we have such specialists?," he asked. The expert also noted that perhaps Armenia should shift the negotiations to returning to the EU's Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+). In this vein, he recalled that the UN revised the poverty rate in Armenia, to 42% by the end of 2022. "After this, don't we have the right to go back there and say that we are not a upper-middle income country or high-income country? We still have something to do in the GSP+ scheme. Who should do this? We, the expert community, should do this. I do not want to offend the government, but it is obvious that there are no professionals there," he said. The EU's Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) is a system of customs benefits that allows low- and lower-middle-income countries to export more than 6,200 types of goods to the EU market at zero or reduced customs duties.
Armenia has not been using the GSP+ scheme since January 1, 2022. Since, according to the World Bank, the country has become an upper-middle income country.
