Karavaj is a brand new company in the Armenian market. A year ago, Lebanese-Armenian businessman Sam Hrach Salibian and 32-year old Syrian-Armenian Harout Papazian met in Armenia and decided to start a business. Why? President of Karavaj Sam Hrach Salibian answered that question during an interview with “Hayern Aysor”.

Sam Hrach Salibian: I’m Lebanese-Armenian, but have lived in the United States for 30 years. In 1996, I purchased a home in Yerevan, and I have been visiting Armenia for 4-5 months throughout the past eight years. I’ve been doing business in Armenia for the past three years. We have launched construction of a tavern-hotel and have also started producing knitwear, as well as sportswear and jeans.

“Hayern Aysor”: Why did you decide to start a business in Armenia?

Sam Hrach Salibian: My first goal was to help provide the local Armenians with jobs. If everyone like us can create jobs for 50-100 people, Armenians will stay in Armenia instead of traveling to Russia, Europe or the United States of America. We want to help the country advance that way.

Everyone knows about the problems, but we hope to achieve success by taking the right path. We want to teach people to promote their businesses not by cheating and doing wrong things, but by taking the right path. We try to set an example for other businessmen so that their businesses grow and so that they produce high-quality products and keep Armenia’s reputation high.

Harout Papazian, who is our company’s director, will talk about the production of knitwear.

Harout Papazian: We started producing knitwear six months ago. Throughout the past six months, we’ve produced the Stella knitwear, sportswear, as well as Armenian Jeans and Max Jeans, which are already popular in the local market.

Investments will help us export our products and hire more workers. Currently, we’re only working for the local market, which is very small. It also seems as though the people don’t trust Armenian brands. They think foreign products are higher in quality. We’re trying to break the stereotype so that people trust local companies.

“Hayern Aysor”: Where are your products sold?

Harout Papazian: People can purchase our products at stores in the Harav-Arevmtyan quarter-district, as well as Yerevan City, Nor Zovq and Kaiser Supermarkets. We still don’t have enough capacity to provide more output.

“Hayern Aysor”: Were you doing the same thing in Syria?

Harout Papazian: I had a production line in Aleppo.

“Hayern Aysor”: When did you meet Sam Salibian?

Harout Papazian: I met him almost a year ago, and we decided to start a business together. We studied the market and saw good products. It’s obvious that we face hardships and that Armenian businessmen have a different way of thinking. For instance, Armenian merchants get products from Turkey for cash, but when you offer them a better product and at a lower price, even though they get happy, they refuse to give cash, saying that they’ll sell the products and then give the money. However, Turkey buys weapons with the money from sales. We offer not only high-quality products, but also guarantee that buyers can return the product in case of any flaws, and the money will stay in Armenia.

Their way of thinking is a mystery for me, and I still don’t understand it. We hope things will change for the better, especially since there are people who are starting to work with us.

“Hayern Aysor”: What other difficulties do you face?

Harout Papazian: We have a problem with raw material. It’s hard to order the raw material we need from abroad. When you import the necessary accessories from other countries, you pay a lot of money and don’t get the quality you want. If we at least we had a textile production line in Armenia, things would be very different.

“Hayern Aysor”: I thank you and wish you success. My last question is for Mr. Salibian. During the recent congress entitled “On the Paths of Assimilation”, during which the participants touched upon Syrian-Armenians’ employment issues and their integration into the business world in Armenia, you mentioned that Syrian-Armenians must take into consideration three points to start a business in Armenia. What are those three points?

Sam Salibian: The first is trust. Many Diaspora Armenian businessmen tell me I’m crazy to start a business in Armenia and that I’ll lose my money. There is no trust, but fear that you can lose your money.

There is also a problem with stocks. Many think anyone can come and tell me that I have to give half of my earnings to that person.

There is also pressure from tax collectors. Taxing issues must be solved in order to make things clear for everyone. In many countries, businessmen are exempt from paying taxes for a couple of years and start paying after their businesses succeed.

In Armenia, everything is in the present. The important thing is the present. Nobody thinks about the future. When well-known Professor Deming traveled to Japan in 1980, he taught company owners to think not about the present, but what will happen in 50 or 100 years.

We have to introduce that idea in Armenia as well. Our goal is to be far-sighted, not short-sighted.

We hope Armenia is able to become one of the most developed countries in the region. If the Armenian people and the government and Armenians abroad work together and do good business, nobody will be able to win us.

Interview by Lusine Abrahamyan