Armenia’s national air carrier Armavia will soon have a new foreign
owner, which, according to some experts, is “dangerous and unadvisable”
from the national security point of view.
Armavia’s current owner Mikhail Bagdasarov confirmed the information
about the airline’s sale, saying that at the moment there are two main
likely buyers – one of them is an Italian company, the country of origin
of the other likely buyer is not mentioned yet.
In the last year or so Armavia has been on the verge of bankruptcy and
the Zvartnots international airport on several occasions had to
discontinue servicing the airline’s regular flights, which created
inconveniences for air passengers.
Armavia officials said still in 2010 that the company was working in
very unfavorable conditions imposed by the consequences of the global
economic crisis and that the prices for services set by the Zvartnots
were rather high.
According to Armavia, Zvartnots charges about 20 euros per passenger for
its services, while in Georgia, for example, the country’s national air
carrier enjoys a discount and pays a fee of only 4 euros per passenger
and Armavia there pays 12 euros.
The sellout of another strategic facility of Armenia to a foreign
company has raised more concerns in the country that already has its
major strategic sectors (such as railway, communications, electricity
and gas, water supply) owned or run by foreign companies, mostly from
Russia.
Political analyst Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan described it as regrettable
that Armenia is losing control of another strategic direction.
“I have always been against the sale of strategically important sectors
of the economy to foreign companies. Gaps in the legislation should be
revisited so that the state should remain in control [of such sectors].
Otherwise, it will always involve risks,” he told ArmeniaNow.
Management expert Harutyun Mesrobyan, too, believes that “the sale of a
strategic sector is dangerous from the point of view of national
security”, but he stresses that Armavia has never been a ‘truly
national’ air carrier.
“What is given to oligarchs’ control cannot be national, because the top
priority for oligarchs is to rake in excessive profits,” Mesrobyan told
ArmeniaNow. “It was for these excessive profits that Armavia worked
outside the competitive field.”
Mesrobyan also stressed that in any case in strategic industries the
government should either share in the capital or have control instituted
by law.
“But since we are not a ‘national’ state, since oligarchs and ‘the
national’ are incompatible, it is pointless to talk about any progress
in the oligarchy-based economy,” Mesrobyan concluded.
Source: armenianow.com
