Premier: Armenian government provides support to exporters, but expects return steps from them
In his words, the government’s top-priority objective is to resist the challenges coming from the outside.
Explaining why despite new opportunities on Russia’s market exports to Russia are not being build up, the premier said that the private sector, not the government exports commodities.
“The government’s task is to create necessary instruments, to make certain arrangements and to carry out some job with domestic commodity producers, and we do it,” he said. “But another aspect should also be taken into account – our commodity producers had no sufficient capacity and they were not able to react to the situation quickly and to build up their outputs.”
Abrahamyan finds it necessary to change the range of products and price policy as soon as possible and not to expect instant success. It is possible to achieve success only by cooperating closely.
According to the National Statistical Service of Armenia, the country’s exports to Russia totaled $179.14 billion in Jan-Oct 2015 showing a 29.4% year-on-year decline.
The prime minister stressed that creation of new jobs is possible only by creating favorable environment for domestic commodity producers amid a strong competition at foreign markets.
He also said that despite complicated economic circumstances, the government has already returned exporters the AMD 10 billion they paid this year as VAT.
In his words, the government intends to increase this amount by another 5 billion.
Besides, the government allocated extra AMD 10 billion for repayment of farmer loans or adjournments of repayment.
“These steps can contribute to increase of export volumes, but they alone are not enough – return steps are needed,” Abrahamyan said. ($1 – AMD 484.79). --0---