Pace of high economic activity maintained, says Armenian Minister of Economy

YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 3, ARMENPRESS. Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan says the high economic activity pace is maintained in the beginning of this year after the high growth in 2022.

Kerobyan said major investment projects are planned for 2023 and the government is working to increase the entry of investment programs into the country.

In 2022 the economic activity index of Armenia grew 14,2%.

Addressing opinions that the growth mostly resulted from the inflow of Russians last year, Kerobyan said that growth was recorded in nearly all branches of the economy – construction, process manufacturing, services, trade, with decline recorded only in mining.

“The world has become fragmented because of the Russian-Ukrainian war. And certain rearrangements took place as a result of that fragmentation. I am pleased to note that despite numerous difficulties we were able to utilize some part of the opportunities that this fragmentation has caused. Our task must be to cement these opportunities so that our businesses will be able to strengthen the success they recorded last year,” Kerobyan said.

Asked about the ferry service which was planned to be launched in 2022, Kerobyan said that the Lars checkpoint is working uninterruptedly at this moment and the vehicles traveling from Armenia reach Russia in one day.

“There is a large volume of trade turnover. The number of vehicles passing through the Lars checkpoint per day is unprecedentedly high. This too shows that we are maintaining the pace of high economic activity in the first months of the year,” the minister said.

Kerobyan said they continue working in direction of launching the ferry connection because an alternative route for the Lars checkpoint is a necessity. Negotiations continue. However, Kerobyan refused to mention timeframes for the possible launch.

Speaking about the planned dry port project in Gyumri, Kerobyan said: “We are creating a leading industrial infrastructure where companies can easily start their industrial processes, and also use logistical opportunities and transport to the nearest port or airport with comparably cheap prices.”

It’s planned that the operator of the dry port will be selected during 2023 and the operator will begin the investment work. This project has been submitted to the Public Investments Committee chaired by the Prime Minister, where it was preliminarily approved.

Kerobyan is in no hurry to mention specific numbers in terms of growth projections for 2023, reminding that none of the projections made in early 2022 turned out to be true because the world is very unpredictable due to various events. Nevertheless, the government’s target will be at least the 7% growth of the GDP as stated in the budget.

“And we will focus on reaching this figure in our work,” Kerobyan said.

Asked about the government’s planned work to ensure the economic growth, Kerobyan mentioned several tasks, including the acute demand for workforce.

“We are even turning to foreign workforce to meet the workforce demand. You can see that there’s a rather large under-qualified foreign workforce in Armenia from India, Iran, Central Asia and elsewhere. The second main issue is the security issue, stabilizing and improving the security environment will naturally help economic activity. Third are the logistic issues, which trouble us a lot throughout the year, I hope there’ll be few such issues this year. We are now carrying out major work to increase the entry of investment projects into the Armenian market,” Kerobyan said.

The Minister of Economy said that today they are very far from the targets outlined in the government program, i.e. to bring the investments ratio up to 25% of the GDP. Kerobyan said they are trying to mobilize capacities in this direction.

Furthermore, a number of major investment programs are currently in the final phase of discussions.

Interview by Anna Grigoryan

Photos by Hayk Manukyan

Cameramen: Hayk Barseghyan, Hovhannes Mkrtchyan