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Los Angeles Timesâ€™ article exposes Californiaâ€™s Armenian community

24 July 2007 09:52 (UTC +04:00)

â€œIn the summer of 2003, budget-cutting California lawmakers closed state trade promotion offices in London, Hong Kong, Mexico City and other world business centers, a dozen in all.
But they voted to keep one open â€” in Yerevan.
That’s in Armenia.
Responding to an enthusiastic pitch from California’s large and influential Armenian American community, the Legislature passed a law creating the California-Armenia Trade Office. They charged the new state agency with boosting California’s exports to a poor, landlocked nation of 3 million people in a tumultuous region where Europe and Asia uneasily meet.
Legislators, however, insisted on one novel caveat: This effort to represent California in a nation with an economy the size of San Bernardino County’s should run on private donations and get no taxpayer funds.
Supporters say it’s an innovative way to help exporters reach potentially lucrative emerging markets, not only Armenia but other former Soviet states, including Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
"This trade office created a new model for California," said Sen. Jack Scott (D-Altadena), author of the Armenia trade bill. Scott’s district includes Glendale, home to a thriving Armenian American community.
That group "loves the idea that their state of California is working with Armenia as a gateway to that big region," said Johnny Nalbandian, who runs the trade agency’s office in Glendale.
But critics consider it ludicrous to put the state’s sole overseas trade office in such a small and isolated country. If California were a nation, it would have the world’s eighth-largest economy, they note. Armenia ranks 128th.
"If you’re going to have a trade office for the state and if you only had to have one, it would seem that, logically, that office would be in a more central location and a larger market," said John Leibman, a Los Angeles lawyer and former member of the California State World Trade Commission.
Armenia is California’s 89th-largest export market, ranking behind Bulgaria and ahead of the Bahamas. California’s exports to Armenia, mainly transportation equipment, machinery, computers and electronics, totaled $25 million last year, about 2% of the state’s global exports. Armenian exports to California, mostly processed foods, rugs and diamonds, were valued at about $15 million, the California-Armenia Trade Office said.
Jerry Levine, a San Francisco trade consultant who has worked for dozens of U.S. state and foreign governments, scoffed at the assertion that Armenia could serve as a gateway for California exports to Eastern Europe and western Asia.
"Trade directors of other states burst into laughter at the news that California not only closed its real offices but has its only one in Armenia," he said. "Even worse, the bill would extend the mandate of this office to all the former USSR states. And what is their relationship to Armenia? Cordial?"
Armenia’s eastern and western neighbors, Azerbaijan and Turkey, have closed their borders to trade with Armenia because of political and ethnic conflicts in the region.
Local official Business, Transportation and Housing Agency concluded that mentioned trade office let the hopes down. /APA/