The topic of “construction balloon” will stay an important topic of political discussions in Armenia for a long time. The debate between Robert Kocharyan and Tigran Sargsyan does not come to an end, but instead it is becoming even more active. To note, the debate started after the Prime-Minister discussed economic issues in his New Year address and said that during the previous government there was a “construction balloon” which had to blast and result in negative consequences for the economy of the country. In fact this message was addressed to the second president Robert Kocharyan, who reacted very aggressively, and even said words that could insult the PM.

The prime minister had better say nothing. If you have so many mortgages, why do you have so little construction? If we believe in figures, then the conclusion from the article is one: despite the stable growth of mortgage and improvement of its conditions, we have less and less construction.

There is a very nice proverb, which would be very beneficial for our society and we could use it to measure morality: “Do not judge people with what others say about them, but judge people with what they say about others.”

These are the main reasons for stable reduction of the volume of construction projects in Armenia. Everything is very simple and understandable (but not for people that have “exclusive talent”). This is not the fault of the previous government or aliens. It is a long time that the crisis has nothing to do with this either. It is impossible to avoid liability.

The Armenian parliament ratified the December 2 intergovernmental agreement between Armenia and Russia with 72 for and 0 against votes. The agreement anticipates not only the take-over of the 20% shares of Armenian ArmRusGazArd by Russia but also restricts the power of Armenian laws pertaining to the company for 30 years.

Since the economic downturn in 2008 and the fall off in gold and other commodity prices in the last two years it has become a challenge to attract investments in any business, especially in the mining sector. Mining projects require large capital investments and are often high risk, considering the market volatility and initial funding needed for exploration that does not always guarantee positive results.

According to the freshest results of the Armenian National Statistics Service the index of economic activeness of Armenia was 3.1% for January-November. But the start of the year was pretty good and in the beginning of the year the same index was 8%. The optimism of the government has decreased. This year the government planned 6,2% economic growth but the president assigned the government to reach 7%. But according to the current picture we only have 4.1%.

The National Assembly of Armenia approved the gas agreement with Russia by 72 votes for, 0 votes against and 0 abstained.

I strongly believe that nobody, including Russia, has or will ever stop us from fighting our own corruption problem; bringing order inside our own house is our problem, thus we should not put the blame on anybody or try to look for reasons why it does not happen. It is us that are guilty in all this. If we are not satisfied with the current social and economic situation, it is the fault of the society, political elite and our decision makers.

The Armenian energy and natural resources minister Armen Movsisyan said concerning Armenia’s debt of $155 million that the debt was accumulated since 2011. The minister’s cloudy explanation gives a clue that the price of gas was increased in 2011 but ArmRusGazArd company continued paying the old price ($180).