Tag Archives: Armenia

IMF raises Armenia’s 2015 GDP growth rate

SEPT. 26 2015, YEREVAN (The Conway Bulletin) — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised its economic growth forecast for Armenia in 2015 to 2.5% from an earlier 1% projection, Mark Horton, the IMF mission chief to Armenia, told a news conference.

Although the upward revision of Armenia’s growth forecast will be welcomed by officials and will give the government some breathing space as it tries to navigate its way through an increasingly deep regional economic crisis, Mr Horton emphasised that the revision was due to a handful of one-off factors.

“Among the non-recurrent factors which will not happen next year are the launching of a copper factory, unprecedented favourable climate conditions and the good results from the agriculture sector,” he told journalists at a press conference.

Armenia’s agriculture ministry said earlier this month that the sector had grown by nearly 15% in the first seven months of the year compared to the same period in 2014. Also, a new copper mine that started operations at the end of 2014 has contributed to a 35% increase in overall metals and mining output.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Trade turnover drops in Armenia

SEPT. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Trade turnover in Armenia dropped by over 5% in the first eight months of the year compared to the same period in 2014, media reported quoting the country’s statistics office. Media also reported that consumer prices had risen by 4.8%. Both indicators show the pressure that the Armenian economy is under.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Armenia wants to boost electricity sales to Iran

SEPT. 23 2015, YEREVAN (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia wants to increase by four-fold electricity exports to Iran, a senior government official said, highlighting the important regional economic position that the Iranian government will hold once international sanctions are lifted, as expected, later this year or next.

At a policy meeting in Yerevan, Areg Galstyan, the Armenian deputy minister for energy and natural resources said a third electricity transmission line to Iran was being built that would increase exports.

“Now in a year we export 1.8b kilowatt hours of energy to Iran and the capacity can be increased to 6.9b. kWh per year,” he said at a press conference. “We hope that the construction of a third Armenia-Iran high voltage electricity transmission line will be finished in 2018.”

The growing trade and diplomatic relationship between Armenia and Iran has become increasingly important for the government in Yerevan. It is short of regional allies. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still officially at war over the disputed province of Nagorno-Karabakh and its ties with Turkey have been broken over allegations of a genocide 100 years ago, meaning that it has turned to Iran as partner.

And with Iran on the brink of being accepted back into the international community after a deal with the United States and others over its nuclear weapons programme, relation – trade, diplomatic and cultural – are set to grow.

Armenia sees itself as a growing regional electricity exporter. As well as increasing exports to Iran it also wants to increase them to Georgia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Group of men beat Armenian opposition activist

SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A group of men dragged Smbat Hakobian, a member of an Armenian opposition group, away from a march and beat him, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. HRW said this was the 2nd time an opposition activist had been beaten in the past year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Armenia to produce lifts

SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian private company ADA Tech and the Chinese lift manufacturing factory Koyo signed an agreement to jointly build a lift factory in Armenia by 2018.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Armenia accuses Azerbaijan on civilian killing

SEPT. 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia-backed authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh accused Azerbaijan of shelling a civilian area and killing three women. The accusation marks a heightening of tension around the disputed region. Violence is a feature of the region but civilian deaths are not common.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Cheese exports double in Armenia

SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia has doubled cheese imports from Armenia this year, media quoted the head of Russia’s statistics agency, Konstantin Laikam, as saying. Shops in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia have had to diversify their supplier base for cheese and other products to beat EU sanctions.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

US says graft is a problem in Armenia

SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the US Ambassador to Armenia, Richard Mills, said that corruption was still a major problem in the country. Mr Mills said that some progress had been made but that it was holding back the Armenian economy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Armenians protest electricity price rise

SEPT. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Armenia detained 50 people during a protest against electricity price rises for businesses. The government backed down after a series of protests in July and said it would subsidise a 17% price rise for residential property but that businesses would have to pay it.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Russia’s RAO wants to sell Armenia electricity network

SEPT. 17 2015, YEREVAN (The Conway Bulletin) — The owner of the Armenian Electric networks company, Russia’s Inter RAO Holding, said it wanted to sell the company to Cyprus-registered Liormand Holdings Limited, triggering more bad feeling towards the company which many people already blame for trying to raise electricity prices.

It’s unclear why RAO would want to sell the Armenian electricity provider to a Cyprus shell company, but Russia does have a background in using this type of scheme to muddy companies’ ownership structures.

Whatever the reasons, the depth of bad feeling towards RAO and confusion about what the deal means for ordinary people was clear on the streets of Yerevan after the announcement.

Anna Khachatryan, a student, said: “We don’t know anything about Liormand Holdings Limited. Is it a good manager?”

Earlier this year thousands of people protested in Yerevan against a proposed 17% price rise, eventually forcing the government to back down and drop most of the plans.

The 1in.am news website wrote in a commentary, that the deal to sell the company was problematic.

‘The sale of the electricity networks does not give the answers of existing important economic and political questions, but, in fact, raises many new questions,” it wrote.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)