YEREVAN, JANUARY 23, ARMENPRESS. Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Armenia has evaluated the possible volumes of exports of fruits and vegetables in 2016, which, according to the predictions, in case of absence of negative factors, will reach 120-125 thousand tons, which is a rise by 60% as compared to 2015. Last year 76 thousand and 678 tons of fruits and vegetables were exported from Armenia.  Deputy Minister of Agriculture Robert Makaryan told “Armenpress” about this

He referred to those opportunities rising for Armenia that occurred as a result of Russia’s ban on imports of a number of Turkish products since January, 2016. “We have no pretension to fully cover the segment of Russian agricultural market that was once covered with Turkish products. We want to just increase the exports volumes to the RF taking advantage of the reality”, Robert Makaryan stated, clarifying that some works have already been done in this direction. Particularly, on November 27 and 30 Minister of Agriculture Sergo Karapetyan convened consultations with the participation of exporters of agricultural products. Afterwards, a number of discussions were organized with Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan.

He noted that according to data provided by exporters from Armenia to Russia that despite Turkish products are sold at lower costs than Armenian ones, the latter has its unique place in the Russian market due to high quality.

Robert Makaryan finds that the future rise in exports of fruits and vegetables will not result in deficiency in the local market, as any producer prefers to realize his product first of all here, avoiding problems that can occur in Russia, and then think about exporting the remaining part.