Progress in Armenia’s economic competitiveness not tangible, say economists

Armenia’s economic competitiveness shows progress only in figures, an economist has said, refraining from any comments on the anti-monopoly policies.

Speaking to Tert.am, Tatul Manasaryan referred to the World Economic Forum’s recent report which was recently on the parliament’s agenda.

“We cannot say - based on those figures – that we are in a favorable situation. Those with dominant positions have a higher specific weight in the economy. And most importantly, there are more abuses. For us, the important thing is how all this impacts consumers and free competition. We cannot look only upon the figures, because we live here and know how things work. We cannot naturally be satisfied with what we have today. There have been certain reforms in the past years, but they aren’t acceptable to us,” he said.

Introducing the WEF report at the National Assembly, Artak Shaboyan, the chairman of the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition, said Armenia improved its positions in the index which rates countries based on the dominant businesses’ impact. In the list of 144 states, Armenia ranked the 75th with the effectiveness of its anti-monopoly policies and the 97th with the result of its local competitiveness strengthening efforts (instead of the 78th in 2013).

The economist noted that the Committee and the corresponding law aim to protect competitiveness rather than combat monopolies.

“If there is such a desire, there are also solutions; the European countries conduct quite an active struggle against monopolies by enforcing strict sanctions. We too, have sanction mechanisms, but they are so symbolic that it is better to pay fines,” he explained.

Addressing the problem, Vahagn Khachatryan, another economist, referred to the World Bank’s 2013 analysis in which Armenia was a sole leader on the post-Soviet area and Eastern Europe with the level of its monopolized businesses.

He said the progress reflected in the WEF report is not tangible for Armenia’s population which does not see the quality of the services improve or the prices on the market drop.

Though the Davos World Economic Forum makes objective evaluations, such an improvement does not yield real results, Khachatryan noted.

“An analysis by the same World Bank says 20 percent of the economy belongs to monopolies in Armenia. But there are two or three dominant players, with monopolists keeping two thirds of Armenia’s economy under control. A 19-point progress does not mean anything yet,” he said.