Armenian businessmen and industrialists may be a little reluctant to invest in Armenia, but that has not prevented them from opening their checkbooks to help their newly independent homeland. As individuals and collectively, the Armenian community of Argentina has sent millions of Dollars’ Worth of aid in recent years and spared no effort to help fellow Armenians.
They have built schools and churches, renovated hospital floors and have made more than one attempt to build up trade relations between Armenia and Argentina. "I cannot say we have given up, but until now it is no secret that we have been somehow disappointed with our efforts to start up real business relationships with Armenian companies," said an Armenian businessman who declined to be named for this article.
"On more than one occasion we tried to encourage Armenian entrepreneurs to come and study our Argentinean market needs, but until now, we have not seen any action on their part," he said.
One such group involved with the Armenian business world is the Camara Argentino Armenia (CAA), or the Argentine Armenian Chamber of Commerce, which was established in 1986, well before Armenia's independence.
Its members are top industrialists and businessmen who have, as individuals and collectively, helped Armenia in every way they could. While it was initially created to strengthen links between the Armenian businessmen and industrialists of Argentina with the local authorities, it has also embarked on the search of enhancing ties with fellow Armenian businessmen.
"We have the mechanism in place to help. We have the contacts, we know the laws and the intricacies of how business is done. All we need is a similarly interested approach from Armenia itself.
"We are not going to act as middlemen or sales agents, but we can help with the introductions and acting as expert advisers," CAA president Manuel Arslanian said.
The CAA is one of 23 such Chambers of Commerce in Argentina and enjoys the same prestige as others such as the U.S. British, German, Italian and other entities. Between them, the 23 Chambers of Commerce account for more than 73 percent of Argentina's trade with the outside world.
A CAA delegation visited Armenia in 1998 and went as far as appointing a permanent representative in Armenia to follow up leads, but to date, business activity has been "next to nil, zero".
"We have been provided with a long list of Armenia's potential exportable goods, but where are the Armenian businessmen? The marketing process should start from Armenia. When I have something to sell, I go out and look for markets. You have to go to the market because the market will not come to you," another businessman said.
With its 250 plus dues paying members, the CAA made its downtown Buenos Aires offices available to the first Armenian diplomatic mission to Argentina before the Embassy moved to a building owned by philanthropist Armen Medzadourian, the founder of the Arzoumanian Foundation which is often described as "A Bridge of Friendship" between Armenia and Argentina.
The Foundation, named after Medzadourian's brother-in-law Boghos Arzoumanian and his sister Siranush, is one of the most active on the Argentinean scene. Arzoumanian came to Argentina in 1924 as a teenager. He miraculously survived the Genocide and had lived briefly in Beirut, Lebanon in the care of Christian missionaries.
His first job in Argentina was in a cold storage meat packing plant and later as a shoemaker, factory owner and real estate developer.
Before his death in 1979, Arzoumanian a man with a profound sense of social responsibility towards his adopted homeland had already donated large sums of money towards many Armenian and Argentinean projects, including the construction of the Escuela Armenio-Argentina public school which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 1998.
Under Boghos Medzadourian and his wife Siranush, the Arzoumanian Foundation has launched a large number of humanitarian projects, starting with aid to the Armenian community in Lebanon, the construction of a reception hall at the Social, Sports and Cultural Center of the Argentinean Cultural Association in Palermo Viejo, the construction of Middle School 76 in Armenia and many others. But Medzadourian is not alone. Eduardo Seferian, who settled in Argentina in 1948 after the communist takeover in Romania, has stayed away from what he describes as "Armenian internal political matters", but has remained close to the community.
This year Seferian, who owns a multimillion dollar cotton industry business and factory that employs 800 people, and his sister Adrine purchased and donated a four-story building in downtown Buenos Aires for the Armenian Embassy.
"I am very much concerned with the future of our community here because the new generation is not as involved as it should be," he said in a recent interview.
"During my teenage years in Romania, we were not integrated into the local society. It is different here. We need to keep the youth engaged in Armenian issues," he said.
But despite his deep commitment to Armenia, Seferian has not been to Armenia. For that matter, he has not left Argentina. "It's an open secret that I have this fear of flying. I don't like planes and I have not flown for decades," he said
His fear of planes is not shared by Eduardo Eurnekian, a leading Armenian businessman and tycoon whose company, Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, now owns and controls every airport in the country.
Elsewhere in the world, national airports are privatized individually, but under Argentina's former President Saul Menem, all of the airports were sold to one man, Eduardo Eurnekian, the son of an Armenian immigrant, a Genocide survivor who came to Argentina penniless in the early 1920's in search of a better life.
"My father had lost his own father in the Genocide and had lived a few years in a refugee camp in Beirut before coming here. He had a difficult start but he did build up his life and a textile business," he said in a rare interview at his central Buenos Aires office where a map of Armenia, religious icons and a picture of St. Vartan, the patron saint of Armenia, are prominently displayed.
After years in the family business, Eduardo Eurnekian began branching out, first into the media, then television and cable and in recent years into airport management and ownership.
His company, in which Italian and American partners own a minority share, now runs 32 airports in Argentina with yearly passenger traffic of more than 20 million people.
Under the terms of the 30 year agreement with the Argentine government, Eurnekian's company will be investing 2.2 billion dollars in renovations and infrastructure, some of which has already been completed with the construction of a new arrivals terminal at Buenos Aires International Airport.
"This might sound monopolistic, but I prefer doing things which do not have too much competition. I was in textiles in the 1970's. In the 1980's I went into cable television. In the 1990's I was in newspapers and radio and now that we are in the 21st century airports," he said.
"It seems I've been changing every ten years," he added. He is in his late 60's and at this pace, there is no telling what his next business venture will be.
While not an active member of the Armenian community, Eurnekian has always been a silent supÂporter of Armenia.
In recent years he has donated close to 700,000 Dollar worth of television equipment to the Armenian State Television Company, the Nagorno Karabakh State Television and the Holy See of Etchmiadzin.
"I am not interested in politics, and I will continue helping when and where 1 can. My father would have wanted that," he said.
Like Eurnekian, Armen Excerjian has also built an empire in textiles after leaving Turkey at the age of 15: a result of what he described as the constant pressures, discrimination and persecution by the authorities, especially in 1956 when hundreds of Christian owned shops were looted and burned in Istanbul.
Arriving alone in 1961, Excerjian went to school only for one year and when his father sold his textile business in Istanbul and joined him in Argentina, he left school and entered the small family business which has since grown into a multimillion dollar cotton weaving enterprise that employs 650 people.
One of his main concerns today is the future of the Armenian youth in Argentina and the independent Republic of Armenia.
"We have to get the youth engaged in these issues. Let's face it, the youth is no longer interested in just social events. They get turned off if they see the older generation in conflict. We need more unity," he said.
Turning to the subject of Armenia, Excerjian said signs of decreasing enthusiasm were already evident in the community at large, but there still was hope.
"Whatever happens, we cannot get Armenia out of our minds and we will continue helping," he said.
The Excerjians have already donated more than 300,000 dollars for the renovation of the pediatric wing of a hospital in Armenia, complete with patient rooms, equipment and other basics.
The reconstruction project, like many others, has been carried out through the Armenia Fund which has channeled several million Dollar worth of humanitarian and other aid to Armenia in the past seven years.
While the Fund remains the main pipeline, many individuals have made private donations to dozens of already existing aid projects in Armenia, including those undertaken by various community organizations such as the AGBU.
But as much as direct aid is important, businessmen and industrialists agree that what Armenia needs more is investment and trade to boost the national economy.
"There will always be someone in the community who will undertake a humanitarian, educational, cultural or medical project. We are sure of that, but what is lacking is the confidence to invest, to trade.
"There could be a market here for Armenian products, and we are ready to help, but more important than that is an active move on the part of Armenian businessmen in Armenia to take the first step. We are here to encourage them, but we cannot do their work," an international trade expert said.
