Armenia faces its domestic problems

In Yerevan, all of Armenia’s economic woes are attributed to the “blockade” that Turkey and Azerbaijan have placed on Armenia. Today, however, even Armenia’s state-run media has turned to saying that the country’s problems are rooted in a completely different field.

Experts claim that a strong trade imbalance is slightly offset by international aid, the remittances of Armenians working abroad, and foreign direct investment. Recently, however, their volumes have begun to decline.

Armenia faces many problems day by day as the situation in the country is getting worse. It appears that the government cannot help its own citizens with the least bit of financial assistance.

Meanwhile, thousands of homeless Armenian families still live in Gyumri, a city that for 25 years has been reeling from the effects of a devastating earthquake on December 7, 1998.

The Armenian newspaper “Aikakan jamanak” says that in general, about 3,500 families or 11-12 thousand people have no homes in Gyumri and live in unthinkable conditions. For various reasons, about 3,000 families were left without shelter after the earthquake.

The question of why the Armenian government cannot gather the strength to support its own citizens is a regular topic of discussion.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale struck Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city, and shook the entire country on December 7 in 1988. The quake killed at least 25,000 people in the region. Thousands more suffered injuries and hundreds of thousands left homeless.

The Armenian government has tried to justify the current situation with claims that some people did not know that they need to be registered, some were late with submitting documents, others were out of the country, and the state has no obligations with respect to these people.

However, the situation shows that the government just cannot solve its own problems as a result of its unwise policies.

Currently, Armenia faces a list of serious problems that are seemingly too late to solve.

Armenia has serious problems in its foreign policy as it has illegally occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijani lands. Thus, the country is closed off to its neighbors Azerbaijan and Turkey , meaning a total blocking of important mutually beneficial projects. Armenia was forced to spend a great amount of its much needed money on its military budget and the only one to blame for its woes is the Armenian government, as Azerbaijan repeatedly demanded that the Armenians free its territory and end the war.

Among the internal causes for its financial problems, there are insufficient funding to curb inflation, a reduction in arable land that, tax system inefficiencies, a strong underground economy and black market, corruption, and monopolization.

The geographical isolation of Armenia, having a narrow export base and widespread monopolies in important business sectors, has made Armenia's economy particularly vulnerable to the global economic recession and downturn.