ArmInfo. Armenia's IT sector can annually provide 45-50% growth. The executive director of the Union of IT Enterprises (UITE) of Armenia Karen Vardanyan in an interview shared this assessment with the ArmInfo correspondent. He noted that in recent years, on average, the IT sector of Armenia provides 20-25% of annual growth, with a turnover of $ 500 million.
In particular, the expert noted that today IT enterprises operate in Armenia, which annually record high growth rates. In his opinion, in the case of conducting an effective policy and correct positioning "in one key direction" on the international market, for 3 years the number of IT enterprises in Armenia can grow 5 times.
According to him, the sphere in the five-year period can reach 50% growth if problems in the tax sphere, education, representation of Armenia in the international arena as a country with high IT potential, in the issue of attracting foreign specialists to Armenian enterprises and others. At the same time, Varadanyan attached special importance to providing the industry with government orders, which, as a rule, are performed by international IT organizations, and not by domestic ones. As an example, the expert cited state orders within the military-industrial complex, which Armenian specialists serve only 5% of the total. "It turns out that the work that Armenian enterprises can perform is performed by foreign contractors," he said.
As for positive changes in the tax part for IT, Vardanyan noted the establishment of a shorter VAT refund period for exporting legal entities and the elimination of the application of VAT on the border for machinery and raw materials imported by VAT payers in Armenia, which was recently adopted by the government. "This is the issue for which we unsuccessfully struggled from 2007-2008. And today I interpret the changes as a special signal from the Government, which indicates that we are moving in the direction of improving those points that have senselessly limited the revival of our economy," he stressed.
To note, according to the estimates of the Ministry of Economic Development and Investments, the IT sector of the economy provided about 6% of Armenia's GDP in 2016.
