PRIME MINISTER OF KARABAKH SAYS “NO” TO OLIGARCHS
Lragir.am
26 April 06
During the April 26 meeting of the government NKR Prime Minister
Anushavan Danielyan briefly analyzed the peculiarities of development
of the country’s economy. Considering that the prime minister of NKR
rarely makes public speeches, his invitation to ministers to give
briefings more often is quite notable. It should be noted that the
public officials of Karabakh do not like public meetings and answering
questions that sometimes appear in press. Especially the questions
why the loan policy is not transparent, why the effectiveness of
this policy is not analyzed, why the “estimates” of return on tax
are boosted artificially, why agricultural production grows but no
processing factories are founded.
Anushavan Danielyan answered these questions from a new perspective.
By the way, not only did he answer these question, but he also raised
new questions. Particularly considering the budget performance in
2005, the prime minister mentioned that although the receipts grew
by 102 per cent, the budget was performed by 102 per cent. The prime
minister assessed the budget as risky.
Although during the 7 years of office of the present government the
volume of industry has grown significantly, and the prime minister
said the growth was, in fact, thanks to the Copper Factory in Drmbon.
In other words, no other factories were opened. Over the past years,
according to the prime minister, the efforts of the government were
mainly directed at the development of industry and agriculture.
Presently, the emphasis is laid on building. In this context the
prime minister invited the ministers to open factories of building
materials in Karabakh, such as factories of cement and concrete
constructions. Danielyan reminded that this year the volume of building
will reach 8.5 billion drams, whereas the building materials are
still imported from Armenia.
The prime minister was not indifferent towards agriculture either. He
mentioned that Armenia will spend 146 million from the grant of the
Millennium Challenge Corporation on irrigation systems. It means
that soon the crop yield in Armenia will grow several times, and the
production of Karabakh will no longer be competitive. With regard to
this the prime minister criticized all those people who “are against
irrigation projects in Karabakh” (as far as we know, these people
are from the Azat Hayrenik Party). Anushavan Danielyan characterized
these people as “oligarchs” and said they are ready to take any steps
to drop the price of land and “seize all the lands for a song.”
Besides, there is a problem of marketing. Processing factories,
especially wineries are monopolies, said the prime minister. He called
for promoting small wineries through a loan policy. As far as we know,
the first of these oligarchs and monopolists is the co-chair of the
Azat Hayrenik Party, a shareholder of Karabakh Gold Winery Arayik
Harutiunyan, who is said to be the next prime minister.
Finally, the prime minister said the weak link in the Karabakh economy
is communities and communal services. Besides, according to him,
the ministers and local governments of Karabakh are not working in
a team, and each of them is conducting an independent policy, trying
to extract as much money from the budget as possible.