Deputy Foreign Minister Robert Harutyunyan attended the opening of “Young Entrepreneurs Forum”. To the question of Aravot.am that during the forum, a businessman arriving from France said that they do not want to start a business in Armenia because of the unstable situation in the country, so whether the diplomatic corps has no task to do in this regard, he replied, “Surely, it has. The April events and the instability that we saw leave its effects because all of that was spoken by the international mass media and the whole world are aware of it.
At that point, we were trying to prevent the consequences of the war in April. From the point of view of the businesses, it certainly creates some problems, especially when they do not go deep into the situation and begin to think that it is a place of instability and risks. After solving the issue of the war, we should apply strong efforts to show that Armenia is a quite favorable place for investments.
We are working on it. We accept that Armenia is not well-presented and the businesses are not aware of the possibilities of Armenia.” To the observation that the corruption is an obstacle for the entrepreneurs to come to Armenia, the deputy foreign minister disagreed, saying that first of all, the government is working in this direction, and then, 25 entrepreneurs have already attended the forum, “If what you said were a reality and all of them were scared, we would not have the enthusiasm that we see today.” To our observation that it is just the beginning, they are not familiar with the environment, therefore they have come, he replied, “Do you think that these young people have never been in Armenia and have never heard of Armenia?” He said that next year, we will see again that the same young people will continue to come to Armenia, “I am sure that will stay.”
To our question of why there is an outflow of capital, the entrepreneurs of our country are fleeing, he replied, “We cannot rely on unofficial data, we should rely on the data by the statistic service. There is an outflow from all other countries. The problem is the purpose of the outflow of the money. Is it a business opportunity or to escape taxes? It is a new opportunity to make money. If you are a Russian businessman and have made an investment in Armenia, you receive profits and the big part of the profits will go to Russia. Now, does Russia win or lose from it? The capital moves to a place where there are price and quality opportunities. Why do they go to China? Who becomes rich? Only China? Not, the company that has made investments in China.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
