PM: Armenian economy not diversified enough

PanARMENIAN.Net - The first difficulty that Armenia encountered after contraction is that Armenian economy was not sufficiently diversified, according to Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.

Reacting on crisis, Armenia focused on three directions: diversification, improvement of infrastructure and business environment, the Prime Minster said in an interview with CNN.

“Further we hope to boost business environment and overcome consequences of crisis by means of consecutive efforts directed at implementation of reforms,” he said.

Regarding the export share in GDP, which represented 20% of GDP in 2002, and only 12% to date, the Prime Minister acknowledged that, unfortunately, a trade balance in Armenia still remains negative. “Export promotion is a primary objective for us, and our export is heavily reliant on three areas: mining industry, information and high technologies and tourism,” he said.

Speaking about investments of the Diaspora, Sargsyan said that they are highly estimated as high as 60-70% from GDP. “Of course, investments from the Diaspora came in Armenia not only in the form of foreign direct investments but also as private remittances, which allowed to overcome the effects of the economic contraction,” the Prime Minister said.