“I do not consider this issue a priority for Armenia”, – so responded Bagrat Asatryan, former Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia, in response to the question of Aravot.am of whether he is not concerned about the external debt of Armenia, which is predicted to grow. He said that it is not a primary and acute problem for Armenia, however, it is a problem that should always be kept in focus. To our question about how they are going to payoff Armenia’s billions of debt taken from the Eurasian Bank under this economic growth, Mr. Asatryan responded, “Countries like our should have gone to increase of this debt, there is no other way, if the private sector does not trust us. And how can the private sector trust money to a country where the representative of highest law enforcement officials says, I would cut off your ear? Of course, this is a matter of intelligence, but very disturbing. If the government authorities do not prevent such stupidity, we would have very large losses.”
To our observation that Mr. Asatryan does not share the opinion about the option that Armenia could have refused the EaEU membership and receive no-interest money from the European Union, the former Chairman of the Central Bank responded, “No one owes us, we can try to somehow solve some issues, but neither Europe nor the EaEU as it turned out would not resolve these issues. There was a moment that they were saying about the EaEU that it is giving. But Kyrgyzstan acted a lot smarter. It puts challenges before Russia. While our oops-figures, such a great intelligence possessing officials did nothing. We do not have a way out, perhaps, they would at least contribute to building of such a way. Otherwise, how our poor producer should carry his produce through the Caucasus Mountains and this narrow and hard-passable ways.”
To our question of why this matter was not put before Russians, Mr. Asatryan replied, “I do not know, ask those officials, those great intellectual possessing figures of the Republican Party.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
