ARMENIA, GEORGIA VOW JOINT EFFORT TO ATTRACT FOREIGN INVESTMENT
By Shakeh Avoyan
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Oct 15 2007
Armenia and Georgia pledged to boost bilateral trade and join forces
in attracting badly needed foreign investment into their economies
on Monday.
Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian and his visiting Georgian counterpart,
Zurab Noghaideli, said they agreed to create a "common investment
environment" that would make their small countries more attractive
to large foreign investors.
"We are going to start working on presenting Armenia and Georgia
as a single investment and trade entity to investors interested
in working with us," Noghaideli said after a meeting in Yerevan
of the Georgian-Armenian inter-governmental commission on economic
cooperation.
"Only together can we be of interest to big foreign firms," said
Sarkisian. He argued that the small size of Armenia’s and Georgia’s
populations is a major factor discouraging foreign direct investment.
"Whereas several years ago we were talking about how to make sure our
cargos go through Georgian territory without problems and unfettered
electricity supplies [to Georgia,] we are now discussing issues that
are more important to our peoples. One of those issues is the formation
of a common market," Sarkisian added at a joint news conference.
Neither premier would say how the two countries plan to harmonize
their investment and other economic legislation. A separate statement
issued by the Armenian government also gave no details, saying only
that the idea was high on the agenda of the commission’s meeting.
The meeting also focused on ways of increasing the still modest
volume of Georgian-Armenian trade. According to official Armenian
statistics, it rose by 16 percent to $51 million in the first half
of this year. The figure is equivalent to less than 3 percent of
Armenia’s overall external trade during this period.
"Georgia mainly produces goods that are not produced in Armenia and
vice versa," he said. "We are not competitors and can complement
deficiencies of our markets."
Noghaideli agreed, singling out the chemical and food-processing
industries. The government statement also cited him as stressing the
need to boost the capacity of Georgia’s railway network that processes
the bulk of cargos shipped to and from Armenia.
It was not clear if the two sides discussed the situation in Georgia’s
restive Armenian-populated Javakheti region or the persisting
Georgian-Russian tensions.