SAAKASHVILLI IS GOING TO VISIT ARMENIA TO DISCUSS THE HIGH PRICES OF THE ARMENIAN CARGO TRANSIT
Aghavni Haroutiunian
AZG Armenian Daily
09/06/2009
Armenia-Georgia
According to the Georgian news agencies, Georgian President
Saakashvilli is going to visit Armenia. The preparatory works to the
visit were discussed during the meeting of the Armenian and Georgian
Foreign Ministers yesterday.
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian, who left for Georgia
Sunday, June 7 to pay a working visit, discussed issues of
Armenian-Georgian relations with his Georgian counterpart.
According to the Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze, the
Georgian President’s working visit to Armenia is anticipated on
June 24-25.
The Foreign Ministers discussed also Armenian-Georgian economic
relations, especially the Armenian cargo transit through Georgia.
Before the visit of the Armenian Foreign Minister, the Armenian Prime
Minister Tigran Sargsian announced that Georgia enjoys the transit
monopoly on Armenia. He also mentioned that in case of opening of the
Armenian-Turkish border, the transit monopoly of Georgia would grow
weak. At present, 2/3 of the Armenian freight turnover is carried
out through Georgia. The Armenian Prime Minister mentioned that
the Armenian dependence on Georgia is negative and the neighboring
country makes use of it fixing transit high prices for Armenia. The
Prime Minister detailed that the freight transportation prices from
any point of the world to Poti or Batumi are twice lower than from
Poti or Batumi to Armenia.
Touching upon the issue in Tbilisi, the Armenian Foreign Minister
underlined that the issue of the cargo transit prices through Georgia
is raised by the businessmen. By the same logic, the businessmen may
look for alternative ways of transportation to organize the freight
transportation more advantageously.
Georgian Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze said that the issue is
outside of his competence at the same time assuring that the issue
would be studied by competent bodies. "We will study the issue and
then discuss. There isn’t any unsolved, scandalous or problematic
thing in this issue", Georgian Foreign Minister announced.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
