President Ilham Aliyev: If Armenia was so good and attractive, probably people would prefer to stay, not to leave

Baku. 14 March. REPORT.AZ/ “I was surprised when I was informed that several days ago the Armenian president speaking at MEDEF instead of trying to persuade investors to invest in their country, tried to discredit Azerbaijan, its economy with absolutely groundless facts. He was talking about innovations, saying that Armenia is a country of innovations. Frankly speaking, we were laughing in Azerbaijan because there is a very famous saying: ‘If you are so clever, why are you so poor?’.

Report informs, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev told at the meeting with members of business council of Movement of the Enterprises of France (MEDEF) in Paris.

Azerbaijani President noted that and the fact that Armenia doesn’t have natural resources, doesn’t mean that the people should suffer from that. Most of the developed countries in the world, including France, don’t have natural resources. But they develop their country because there is proper management, transparency, accountability, standards, education, knowledge, innovation. Therefore, instead of telling fairytales to French companies, the Armenian president would have better concentrated on their terrible economic situation in the country, where more than half of population lives beyond the poverty line and without any prospects for the future. According to their official statistics, 60,000 people leave Armenia every year. According to our information, this figure is close to 100,000. If it was so good and attractive, probably people would prefer to stay, not to leave".