Due to the global financial crisis, a significant recession was recorded in diamond cutting of Armenia. Head of the Department of Trade and Effective Markets of the RA Ministry of Economy said that 600 people were employed in this field at the end of 2008, while their number decreased to 380 people by the end of 2009.

“Taking into consideration the fact that from December 2008 to August 2009 Alros company, from which we are purchasing huge volume of raw material, suspended the sales and left the market, like many other raw material supplying companies, the recession becomes explainable,” Gagik Kocharyan told journalists in Yerevan on March 31. He added that after the sales restoration from September to December 2009, 21% average monthly increase was recorded.

Mr. Kocharyan also informed that the growth in the field totaled 35% in January-February 2010, the number of jobs increasing to 735. “60 thousand carats of diamond were imported to Armenia against 10 thousand carats during the same period of last year,” he said.