ANC: POWER AND ECONOMIC RESOURCES MONOPOLIZED IN ARMENIA

news.am
March 19 2010
Armenia

Foreign ambassadors to Armenia are interested in the "100 steps"
programs of economic reforms proposed by the Armenian National
Congress (ANC). They asked the ANC to provide them program to them,
the Armenian ex-premier Hrant Bagratyan told reporters on March
19. He pointed out that the ANC’s program is designed to put an end
to monopolized economy.

"Power and economic resources are monopolized. If we look at
the Forbes section dealing with Armenia, we can see that 54.7% of
Armenia’s economy is in the hands of the ten richest families. By way
of illustration, only 1.9% of GDP are in the ten richest families in
the United States. In Russia, which is considered monopolized as well,
only 3.7% of GDP are in the ten richest families’ hands," Bagratyan
said. "Most of the ten persons have criminal past. About half of them
are the first and second persons of the state. Such a country cannot
progress. They are mostly persons relying on monopolies… Importers
have gradually monopolized the economy, because the ten families
think as follows: why should we produce and invest in Armenia if we
can earn money by importing," Bagratyan said.

According to him, development requires getting rid of this vicious
system and of the people in question. The ANC proposes increasing the
number of employees in economy – from several dozen up to hundreds
of thousands people.