Monday, May 30, 2005

Yesterday I participated in a workshop entitled “Armenia: Financial Sector Development—Directions and Challenges,” which was organized by the Armenian International Policy Research Group (AIPRG) and held at Armenia’s Central Bank cash reserve storage facility in Tsakhkadzor.

I first of all want to thank David Grigorian of the IMF and one of the founding members of AIPRG for inviting me to the event.

I’ve been working for the last few weeks on a plan to stimulate the economy via a Diaspora investment company that invests in companies that are owned by good honest natives and during the many hours of presentations and discussion, I was able to make 63 individual notations that will be of use to form the structure of our investment company.

I also made some very good contacts, which not only will possibly benefit the investment company, but I also met someone who I believe will play a big role in our anti-trafficking efforts.

The event was attended by a wide range of Armenian and non-Armenians, including the president of the Central Bank.

One of the questions asked by a participant was a related to the major change of dollar to dram exchange rate, related to long term loans and what effects it will have to those people who work for dollars, but took out the loan in drams? Though the question was not directed to the president of the Central Bank and was not asking why the dollar was so weak, during the question and answer by one of the panelists, the president was literally covering his face with both hands and was kind of cruelled up in a ball in his chair, I kid you not. In fact during the workshop, the president who was unshaven, appeared to be very uncomfortable and was acting in ways that reminded me of my photography teacher in high school Ken Little, who ended up having a nervous breakdown.

Anyway, though the workshop ran over by 3 hours, I really enjoyed it, am glad that I participated and stayed until the end, as if I had not, like many didn’t, I would not have enjoyed the khorovads dinner which the Central Bank president put on for us.

BTW, I have so much to log about, but so very little time. I guess in the days when I was logging a couple times a day, I really was not doing much and had too much spare time on my hands. Now that I’m working on so many projects, time is very hard to come by. Oh well.

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