Russian sanctions made the entrepreneurs of many countries to make excited steps to be expanded in the Russian market. And, a group of Armenian producers are lazy to move from their places. When embargo for some American, European, and Canadian food was declared in Russia, a ban on imports and sales, in the beginning there was also a wave of excitement in Armenia. The Prime Minister of Armenia, Hovik Abrahamyan, met with a group of business communities to discuss what needs to be done to have an access to the Russian market, and those who are already in the market, what needs to be done to make expanding them.
In the conversation with “Aravot”, the Chairman of the Union of Employers of Armenia, Gagik Makaryan, said that he was also present at the meeting, but did not notice any particular enthusiasm among some business communities. “When the Prime Minister suggested starting to take rapid steps, some business communities began complaining that they have thousands and one problems, which one they should solve: refrigerators are needed, this-and-that is needed. But these are such problems that if willing, they can unite and solve the problems. In other words, they need to spend money, efforts, to run back and forth. There are entrepreneurs who are inactive in the market, are lazy and are doing different things on the side, here and there, and are reluctant to work more. There are entrepreneurs who need to legalize a part of the business, and are reluctant doing it, besides, everything is coming from their laziness, and also ignorance,” said Mr. Makaryan.
But, as presented by Makaryan, there are entrepreneurs who are really interested and want to have a great and fundamental place in the Russian market, and apply efforts for it. These kind of entrepreneurs really need the Government support. “To ease the burden of business, I said to the prime minister, “if we leave everything on entrepreneurs, they simply can’t work quickly, they will not manage. I suggested him to discuss with the Russian prime minister the quota matter of our products in their market. It turns out that we have products under Russian sanctions in 2007: pastrima, sausage, various meat products, now there is a market opened up for export; hence, we need to solve the issue of these sanctions.” Mr. Makaryan said that there are entrepreneurs who are concerned that after increasing the volume of production, they would be unable to sell, and if the quota problem in the Russian market is solved, our producers would definitely know how much to produce and sell.
To our observation that Russia is trying to find new partners in South America and other countries, so whether our producers would be able to compete and manage to occupy a place in the Russian market earlier than other countries, Mr. Makaryan said, “You know, Russians are used to European products because they are very good in quality and design, and there are Russians in central part of Russia and in big cities, who are rich and prefer quality and expensive goods. While our entrepreneurs until they move… In my understanding, the Armenian development agency should also work very fast, go and study the markets and sign agreements. Recently, I was listening to Russia’s Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, who said, our neighboring countries: Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan, he also gave the name of Azerbaijan, and said that they can help to supplement the missing products in the Russian market, he gave the name of the Latin America, but, unfortunately, not Armenia.
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Now there are a lot of embargoed products there, which are re-documented in the name of Azerbaijan production, but nothing in the name of Armenian. For example, the European foods are re-documented in the name of Azerbaijani and Belarus. Such as, the Azerbaijani beans, Polish apples to Azerbaijani, accordingly the Azerbaijani suppliers are stronger. Russian consumer does not always understand that they re-documented products, they see that the Azerbaijani product has immediately and rapidly appeared in their market. This leaves a positive impact on the buyer’s psychology, they are thinking, well, then it is good. In other words, our people should act quickly rather than be lazy.”
Nelly BABAYAN
