Investment volume in Armenia is rather low and can’t provide sustainable development: Suren Karayan

“Investment volume in Armenia is rather low—GDP 1%, upon the data of the first 9 months of this year—USD 92 million per year, and it can’t provide sustainable development. One of the guarantees to provide a long-term economic growth is high volume of foreign investments. We have defined a short-term target to raise foreign investments to GDP 5% per year. As our market is not big, we should provide a large market to our investors and make our business environment competitive in the region,” Suren Karayan, RA Minister of Economic Development and Investments, told at today’s press conference.

According to him 50 legal acts have been adopted to that end, the draft to protection of foreign investment has been developed, so that investors were sure that there is no discriminative attitude in Armenia and one window has been established for investors in the Development Foundation of Armenia.

S.Karayan stated that as a result of implemented work in the first quarter of 2017, 8 companies will operate or enlarge their activity, which will create about 900 workplaces as a result of AMD 3 billion investment.

Regarding why Armenian investors avoid investing in the homeland, the Minister sincerely stated that there was distrust towards the state, “Currently we have attempted to restore that distrust, and 6 out of 8 companies are functioning in Armenia. There was distrust towards the state, cooperation with the Government wasn’t rather clear.”

The Minister repeated PM Karen Karapetyan’s statement, that there are no monopolies in Armenia, but they are natural monopolies under the control of Public Services Regulatory Commission, and others may be those with top positions, “I may surely state now, that the market is open. There is no any restriction, obstacle in the present-day reality.”

By Gayane Khachatryan