Expert: Eurasian Economic Union is a window of opportunity for Armenia

The economic decline in the Eurasian Economic Union has been caused by global economic problems, professor of the National Research University – Higher School of Economics Oleg Matveychev said at a press conference in Yerevan.

The opponents of Armenia’s membership to the Eurasian Economic Union claim that after joining the Union, the country faced problems in almost all of its economic sectors.

Matveychev advises the skeptics to look at what is going on in the European Union. “We see that all the EU members, except Germany and the UK, are experiencing an economic decline. In China the economy is no longer growing as fast as it did before. Japan is running in place. So, this cannot but have an impact on the Eurasian Economic Union,” Matveychev said.

According to Director of the International Institute of the Newly Established States Alexey Martynov, the Eurasian Economic Union was a window of opportunity for Armenia. “The Union has offered the country duty free access to markets in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan and low energy prices,” Martynov said.

VERELQ quotes him as saying that the Eurasian Economic Union was formed just a year ago, so, it is early yet to sum up any results. “The Union has offered Armenia a lot of opportunities and the country should use them,” Martynov said.

He noted that Eurasian integration was not integration into the Russian economy. “Russia is the biggest economy of the Union but all of its members are equal. Our goal is to minimize the consequences of the global economic crisis and to help each other to develop,” Martynov said.