Genocide

[Haykakan]

Re: Genocide

I agree, Armenia's economy has been impressive despite the turckish blockade.

[Jos]

Re: Genocide

Oops, my fault. I didn't think I even had a window open for the Armenian stats when I was doing everything other than the literacy stat. I thought that seemed off. I was expecting it to be clearly lower than China and the US, but that was ridiculously low. Anyhow, it is corrected in my post now.

As to Turkey vs. Armenia economically, it is irrelevant to this discussion. For starters, no one claimed Armenia to be a "superpower". Secondly, Armenia is a fledgling nation at this point. It has only been independent almost exactly 18 years (since Sept 21, 1991) after nearly 70 years of communist Soviet rule. It's going to be a loooong time before we can access just how well Armenia is going to fair. HOWEVER, there IS an interesting little stat showing it may be heading in a positive direction:

GDP - real growth rate:

6.8% (2008 est.)
13.8% (2007 est.)
13.2% (2006 est.)

Even in this tough global economy, Armenia has still managed to make a significant growth in GDP. In fact, it's well above what Turkey, or even America were able to produce, and isn't too far behind China, even.

I'm not surprised by the growth rates in the Armenian economy even if calculated from a low base. With access to open borders and free trade I'm sure the economic growth will be even greater in the future considering Armenians have traditionally excelled as merchants historically.

And you’re correct; Turkey is definitely not a superpower. It lacks political stability, social cohesion, has endemic corruption, unequal wealth distribution, low literacy rates and is place were people can die after three days of continuos rain due to flooding. Nevertheless even with all this mismanagement it has managed to become the 15th largest economy in the world (and with no oil!). Just imagine if it ever got its act together. It simply isn't a country Armenia can ignore regardless of how unpalatable that is to some in the Diaspora. Hopefully Armenia will be able to manage this relationship so it can prosper and Turkey allows it to do so with dignity and mutual respect.