Thursday,
Yerevan Disagrees With Russian Criticism
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia -- Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian at a news conference in Yerevan,
March 30, 2020.
Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian on Thursday insisted that Russian natural
gas has never been as cheap for Armenia as was claimed by Russia’s Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov and that Yerevan is right to seek a reduction in its
current price.
“I agree that during some periods the gas price at the border has been below
international levels but I cannot share Mr. Lavrov’s view that it was ever two
or three times lower than the market-based price,” he said in written comments
to RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
Lavrov dismissed on Tuesday complaints that European Union member states are now
paying less for Russian gas than Armenia and Belarus because of the collapse in
international oil prices. He argued that that unlike EU consumers, the two
ex-Soviet states allied to Russia buy Russian gas at fixed prices that had been
set well below international market-based levels.
“When the existing price for Armenia and Belarus was two or three times lower
than the international price this was taken for granted and nobody said that
it’s politics,” he said, adding that both countries should honor their
“contractual obligations.”
Grigorian insisted that the Armenian government is not seeking to take advantage
of the crumbling oil prices that are hitting the Russian economy hard. He
claimed that Yerevan recently asked the Gazprom giant to cut the price of gas
delivered to Armenia primarily because the Russians wanted to raise it.
Gazprom raised its wholesale price for Armenia from $150 to $165 per thousand
cubic meters in January 2019. Nevertheless the cost of gas supplied to Armenian
households and businesses has remained unchanged since then.
Armenia’s Gazprom-owned gas distribution network has incurred additional losses
as a result. Last month it asked the Public Services Regulatory Commission
(PSRC) to allow a roughly 11 percent rise in its retail prices.
Lavrov also said that internal gas prices set by Armenian utility regulators
make it harder for Gazprom to agree to a deeper discount.
In the context of the gas issue, the Russian minister also criticized ongoing
criminal investigations into major Russian companies operating in Armenia. He
singled out the Armenian railway network managed by the Russia Railways (RZD)
giant.
Grigorian dismissed that criticism, saying that the Armenian authorities cannot
allow any company to operate “beyond the law.” “On this issue we have a mutual
understanding with our Russian partners at the highest political level,” he
added without elaborating.
An Armenian law-enforcement agency raided the Yerevan offices of the network
called South Caucasus Railway (SRC) and confiscated company documents in August
2018. The Investigative Committee alleged afterwards that SRC inflated the
volume of its capital investments by 400 million drams ($830,000).
Both SRC and its Russian operator denied any wrongdoing. Russia’s Deputy
Transport Minister Vladimir Tokarev said last September that the criminal
investigation has effectively disrupted RZD’s operations in Armenia.
A spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee said on Thursday it has still not
charged anyone as part of the continuing probe. Nor have the investigators
identified any concrete suspects in the case, she said.
Investigators indicted several SRC employees in a separate probe which was
completed recently. The latter are accused of embezzling a total of 8 million
drams ($16,600).
In late 2018, law-enforcement authorities also launched a fraud inquiry into
Gazprom’s Armenian subsidiary. They have not indicted any senior executives of
the gas operator either.
Armenian Genocide Commemorations Scaled Back Due To Coronavirus
• Marine Khachatrian
Armenia -- People walk to the Tsitsernakabert memorial in Yerevan during an
annual commemoration of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey, April 24,
2019.
Citing a coronavirus-related state of emergency, the Armenian government has
banned people from visiting a hilltop memorial in Yerevan on Friday to mark the
105th anniversary of the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey.
Huge crowds have for decades marched on April 24 to the Tsitsernakabert memorial
to some 1.5 million Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire massacred or starved
to death during the First World War.
The government decided to cancel the annual daylong procession because of the
coronavirus pandemic which has killed 24 people and infected about 1,500 others
in Armenia. It said that only the country’s top political and spiritual leaders
will lay flowers at Tsitsernakabert this time around.
Officials will then place 105,000 flowers around the eternal fire of the
memorial overlooking the city center. According to Deputy Minister of Education
and Culture Ara Khzmalian, this will be followed by live performances by
Armenian artists to be broadcast live on the night from Saturday to Sunday.
Armenia - People visit the Tsitsernakabert memorial in Yerevan to mark the 102nd
anniversary of the Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey, 24Apr2017.
It was also decided that street lights will be switched off and churches across
the country will toll their bells at 9 p.m. on Thursday. In addition, the
government urged Armenians to turn the lights off in their homes and to light
mobile phone flashlights by their windows at the same time.
All roads leading to Tsitsernakabert and entrances to the memorial were already
blocked by police on Thursday afternoon. They will remain closed until Saturday
night.
People randomly interviewed on the streets of Yerevan welcomed the authorities’
decision to scale back this year’s genocide remembrance ceremonies.
“If there is a danger [of spreading coronavirus] then we must avoid that danger
because we have had enough casualties and must not suffer more,” said one woman.
Government Expects 2% Drop In Armenia’s GDP
• Sargis Harutyunyan
Armenia -- A cable car at the empty ski resort of Tsaghkadzor, March 15, 2020.
Armenia’s government on Thursday forecast that the domestic economy will shrink
by 2 percent this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and announced plans to
borrow more than $500 million to cushion the impact of the recession.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, Finance Minister Atom Janjughazian
argued that the global health crisis has caused a major drop in international
prices of copper, one of the court’s main exports, shut down the Armenian
tourism sector and will cut multimillion-dollar remittances from Armenians
working abroad.
Janjughazian said that this necessitates a revision of the government’s spending
and revenue targets for year which were based on an economic growth rate of at
least 4.9 percent projected for this year. He said the 2020 state budget should
be amended to take account of 150 billion drams ($310 million) in
coronavirus-related relief measures planned by the government and a shortfall in
tax revenues which will likely total 170 billion drams.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s cabinet approved corresponding changes in its
budget proposed by the Ministry of Finance. The changes also have to be approved
by the Armenian parliament.
Janjughazian estimated that the government needs about 260 billion drams ($540
million) in “additional financial resources,” presumably foreign loans, in order
to meet its revised budgetary targets. Armenia’s public debt should therefore
reach a level equivalent to 60 percent of GDP by the end of this year, he said.
Armenia -- Finance Minister Atom Janjughazian speaks at a cabinet meeting,
Yerevan, .
According to Janjughazian, the aggregate debt stood at almost $7.3 billion as of
last month.
The minister did not specify the sources of extra borrowing planned by the
government.
The authorities in Yerevan can use a $248 million “stand-by arrangement”
approved by the International Monetary Fund in May 2019. The IMF said at the
time that the three-year lending program will be launched in case of “unforeseen
economic shocks.”
In its World Economic Outlook released last week, the IMF forecast a 1.5 percent
drop in Armenia’s GDP in 2020. It cautioned that this is a “baseline scenario”
which assumes that the pandemic will fade in the second half of 2020.
The Armenian economy grew by 7.6 percent last year and continued to expand
robustly in the first two months of this year. However, the situation changed
dramatically in March as the government put the country under lockdown to fight
against coronavirus.
The month-long lockdown has involved the temporary closure of most nonessential
businesses. The government allowed construction companies as well as
manufacturers of construction materials and cigarettes to resume their work on
April 13.
Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian said on Thursday that the government will
also allow other sectors of the economy to resume work if the spread of the
virus remains “manageable.” But he gave no time frames for their reopening.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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