Obviously, the global economic development obstacles are political
Have you seen one-day people developing new models of cooperation in global economy, and the next day, think what new means of economic conflict to apply? I gained this very impression last weekend from the G20 summit held in the city of Brisbane, Australia. This group includes 19 countries plus the European Union. About two-thirds of the world’s population lives in G20 countries, 85 percent of global GDP and over 75 percent of global trade goes to them. Consequently, much depends on their leaders. And on Saturday, they were discussing how to improve the state of the global economy, and on Sunday, Barack Obama met with EU leaders to discuss what new economic sanctions are possible to impose against Russia.
Obviously, these two processes are conflicting to each other. Russian President Vladimir Putin, as it is used to say, between the “margins” of the summit, met with the leaders of the UK, Germany, France and Italy. The theme, of course, was the Ukraine. Leaders of Western countries, apparently, urged their Russian counterpart to withdraw his troops from Ukraine and not to equip the Donetsk and Lugansk rebels with heavy equipment. Putin, must be assumed, has said that he has no army in Ukraine and equips no one. The conversation, thus, was very constructive. In this case, of course, the facts, to put it mildly, do not speak in favor of Putin. But it is still a question to what extent the sanctions against Russia are effective, about which they were talking pretty robust in Brisbane, particularly Prime Ministers of the UK and Australia, Cameron and Abbott, respectively, as well as President of the European Council Van Rompuy.
Yes, the sanctions hurt the Russian economy, but it should be realized that they hit the pockets of ordinary Russians, and the latter are ready to tolerate any hardships, just the Crimea, Ukraine and the rest of the “imperial territories” be theirs. In this sense, as they used to say earlier, “the party and the people are united.” And do these ineffective sanctions not prevent the solution of the problems that were included on the agenda of the conference? The discussion of global economic challenges was included in the “G20” official agenda. The point is that although GDP growth is observed throughout the world, it is very slow and does not meet the “G20” leaders. After the 2008 crisis, most of the countries could not reach the “pre-crisis” indicators.
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The international organizations’ predictions are quite modest. In the next three years, the global economic growth will not exceed the 4 percent. Projections numbers are reduced, particularly because of insufficient results of European economic leaders: Germany, France and Italy. For example, in August of this year, Germany’s exports fell by 5.8 percent. What solutions does G20 suggest for these problems, and what was spoken in Brisbane? To create a “hub” of infrastructure in Sydney that will help to tie governments, companies and investors together, as well as to reform the global financial “architecture”, taxation system and so on.
However, the global leaders, of course, understand that it is “cosmetic” and the reason for insufficient growth of economy are political. Mostly, two unresolved problems are disturbing today: the Ukraine and the “Islamic state”. First, the West and Russia created it “in support of” inexperienced and short-sighted government authorities of Ukraine. The second problem is created exclusively by the West, and it is just surprising at how it happened that the United States having huge analytical and intelligence potential did not calculate what the “establishment of democracy in Iraq”, the “Arab Spring” and the rest of its initiated “events” would result in. The results are known: instable situation in the Middle East, decline of oil price, mutual sanctions, of which everyone suffers, both the imposers and the “targets”. Money and business likes a stable, quiet, and predictable environment. Perhaps, we can agree with “The Japan Times” newspaper’s commentary on this occasion, “It’s a losing situation for all players. Under this extremely aggravated period of international relations, an idea occurs that it is still not too late to try another, less “confronting” tactics”. People in the Far East think more far-sighted.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
