SERGE SARGSYAN’S ECONOMIC DISCOVERIES

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[06:00 pm] 11 April, 2006

Today the Defence Minister Serge Sargsyan presented the journalists
the full story of the 5th block of the Hrazdan power station which
turns out to have a 5 – year history and is the initiative of the
Russian side. “Then “RAO EES and GazProm” wanted to buy the 5th block
on condition that Armenia must fully take the produced electricity
but the deal was not profitable for us as we had cheaper electricity
sources then. We gave them a negative answer, and now when the
conditions have become more profitable we give a positive answer.”

In one word, Serge Sargsyan considers the bargain a “favourable”
one. “The strangest is the thing that everybody seems to be concerned
with the deal without having the slightest notion of the 5th block. It
resembles a -three – storey building which only has a cellar and
nothing else.”

The Defence Minister tried to explain the favourable outcome of the
deal to the journalists from economic point of view. According to
him the construction of the block requires at least 180million USD
expenditure and the constructed block will return the sum invested only
in 10 years’ time. “It means that we would have a profitable energy
station only in 2017. And only Nastradamus could answer the question
whether we could have any profit or not,” says Serge Sargsyan. What
do we need now as a country and as a nation? To sell the thing we
don’t possess with 250 million USD or to wait till we have some money
in 2017?”