Հարավային Կովկասի հանրապետությունների տնտեսական զարգացման առանձնահատկություններն ու միտումները / The peculiarities and tendencies of economic development of the South Caucasian states

Abstract

The study and analysis of the history of economic development of the states of the South Caucasus in the post-Soviet period, as well as the comparison of their main macroeconomic indicators, shows that in the period from the 1990s to the early 2000s, the problems of the creation of an optimal market structure, monopolization, social inequality, uneven territorial development, as well as the formation of a shadow economy, significant by its specific weight, were pressing for all three states. These factors significantly affected the perspectives for economic development of these states. Nevertheless, in recent years, the consequences of the mentioned negative factors have been considerably precluded, largely due to the eduction of new opportunities for economic development, increase of the volume of foreign investments and improvement of transport and energy infrastructures. Withal, especially since the second half of the 2000s, the states of the region have began to more actively expand their trade and economic relations with European countries, China, India and Iran, thereby trying to diversify their dependence on foreign markets as much as possible. The analysis of the perspectives for further economic development of the South Caucasian states from the viewpoint of the significant processes occurring in the region in recent years makes it possible to conclude that non-regional states consider the South Caucasus as the most important hub for cargo transportation and transit of energy resources. The attention to our region from such centers of power as the USA, EU, Russia, Iran, Turkey, China and India, has significantly increased, and all three states of the region have become the arena for their geopolitical and geoeconomic competitive activity. These centers of power seek to deepen both economic and political relations with Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, having the objective to maximally use the transit potential of the region, this creating favorable conditions for the economic development of the states of the region and the region itself as a whole. In addition to that, each of these states faces the problem of skillfully using the economic situation shaped in the region and around it for the benefit of its economy.