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Corruption hampers Armenian economic growth, World Bank rep says

November 28, 2002 3:38pm

11/28/2002

Yerevan, 28 November: One of the priority tasks for the maintenance of economic growth in Armenia is to create full economic transparency, which is being hampered by corruption in the country, the head of the Yerevan office of the World Bank, Roger J. Robinson, has told an Arminfo correspondent.

He said that political parties together with the government and donor countries should adopt medium-term measures to reduce corruption. "The talk is not about adopting one or two laws but the implementation of the existing ones. I cannot say that Armenia is in a worse situation than many other countries in terms of corruption. Of course, not. It is even in a better situation. Simply there is a need to further improve the situation in this sphere," Robinson said.

The World Bank representative stated that corruption in Armenia was linked to the task of ensuring a healthy competition environment in the country. "Entrepreneurs often speak positively about competition but on many occasions when other opinions are voiced when the talk is about ensuring a healthy competition in a specific field," the head of the World Bank representative office said.

The main thing, he stated, was an assurance by the government and legislation bodies that competition would not affect the activity of certain people. Rather, it would protect the existing enterprises. "I think that this task will be one of the priority ones in the coming years," he said.

Robinson added that he was optimistic after his meetings with the president, prime minister and members of the Armenian government, as "all these people are set to develop economic liberalism and the establishment of a transparent environment". He stated in particular that President Robert Kocharyan and Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan were very sincere in their aspirations to fight corruption and that they understand this difficult task that stands before Armenia. "I feel that the government wishes to improve the situation and is working out an anticorruption strategy," the head of the World Bank representative office said.

Source: Arminfo, Yerevan, in Russian 1541 gmt 28 Nov 02

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