There is a lot of talk about the need to stimulate and develop exports in Armenia, but, oddly enough, there is still no concept in the country or a national integrated export development program. As we know, the development of a project of such a concept is carried out in the Consulting Consulting Fund, and it is already close to completion. Today, visiting «DE» Executive Director of the Fund, to. T. n. Gagik Makaryan. — Development of the concept of export stimulating is the initiative of your company or ordering a state? — I, as an expert participating in the implementation of various economic programs, was always interested in what needs to be done in order to increase the export of Armenian products. Since Armenia is a small country with a small market, we should be especially careful in approaches to export development. I conducted a small analysis based on statistical data. The volume of imports in Armenia is approximately 1.3 billion. dollars, of which about 300 million. dollars is the cost of raw materials for the production of jewelry and diamonds. The amount of export in monetary terms is approximately 715 million. dollars, which include the same 300 million. dollars. Minus this amount, the volume of products produced (or processed) in Armenia amounted to approximately 415 million. dollars — this is the real amount of exports, which is approximately 35% of the volume of imports. This is a fairly low indicator. We must be interested in the growth of exports, otherwise Armenia will be dependent on foreign markets. In addition, in all countries it is export that is the main sources of currency. In Armenia today there is no currency deficiency due to transfers (about 1 billion. dollars) who are sent to their family citizens of Armenia, working beyond its borders. Now imagine: if there were no these transfers, then only about 415 million would have received in Armenia due to exports. dollars. This amount of currency would not be enough even for importers. What prevents export development today and what needs to be done to stimulate it? Last year, together with the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development, we have implemented the Unido funded by the integration of Armenia into European markets (UN Development Program). Within its framework, at the level of individual stages, the main barriers that impede the development of export were identified. We studied the activities of 30 exporters of different profiles. This year, on our own initiative, we continued this work at a higher level — on the development of a concept and on its basis for a program for stimulating and developing exports. In the process of research, we talked with exporters, and this is what turned out. If you classify obstacles, they will be located in the following order. Firstly, our exporting enterprises do not have information about the needs of foreign markets, about the requirements for goods, in particular, to the characteristics of products itself, packaging, labels, etc. D., as well as what documents are necessary for the import into this country of Armenian products. This is partially due to ignorance of foreign and European standards.
