YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, NOYAN TAPAN. The international financial crisis will affect the economies of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and the worst deterioration of the economic conditions in these countries is likely to be in the winter, the former prime miniter of Armenia Hrant Bagratian made a forecast at the online press conference organized by the Caucasus Jornalists Network. He explained that Armenia has such probems as the liquidity of banks, a decline in the amounts of remittances from abroad, the unreliability of issuing shares, the crisis of the mining and smelting sector, and the risks related to a sharp decline in apartment building. For Azerbaijan, he added the fall in oil prices to the indicated set of problems, while for Georgia he also pointed out considerable losses due to a decline in commodity transportation. In the opinion of the former prime minister, the Armenian economy did not suffer so much as a result of the recent military operations in Georgia because it "started some extra engines and kept its existence". The events had a negative impact on the energy supply of Armenia because of the temporary interruption of its commincation link with Russia. However, "if we take, say, the past 20 years, Armenia has managed to survive. It is no accident that Armenia has the highest index of power intensity per GDP unit production, which we can compare with Western European countries. In short, the situation is bad but not desperate," H. Bagratian said. He expressed an opinion that Armenia may supply electric power to Georgia and Turkey over short periods of time but Armenia can solve the problem of its energy security only by devloping its hydro-power engineering and building a new nuclear power plant. On the other hand H. Bagratian considered Armenia's georgaphical location as a relative advantage, saing that out of 5 regional countries, it is the only one to have real borders with each of the 4 other countries. "For that reason, along with solution of political problems, we must provide communication services to our neighbors," he said.

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