Sargsyan: Of course, Armenia wants to buy energy resources cheaper than its neighbors

ArmInfo. Each country, and  especially Armenia, of course, wants to buy energy resources cheaper  than its neighbors. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan stated in an  interview with bfm.ru.

"It's just an advantage in modern conditions of competition, of  course, something has been decided within the framework of the  Eurasian Economic Union, but not yet fully, and we have such a  decision to come to the common markets of hydrocarbon resources by  2025. When it will happen, I think, we will have a serious incentive  to increase production, and not only production, because almost  everything is on gas, "the Armenian President said.

Answering the question, the share of Russian companies, and the state  that they occupy, is rather a blessing or, perhaps, to some extent,  dependence, Sargsyan said that most likely it is reliable security.  "It would be good if these enterprises worked at minimum profit, that  is, their products would be cheaper than others, but on the other  hand, business remains a business." No one forced us to take these  enterprises, we realized.  we ourselves privatized them, of course, I  understand people who do not remember, because of their age or  awareness, the problems that existed in the 1990s, and now these  questions are viewed from a different point of view, it was not  necessary to give, why? We could have exploited it worse, couldn't  we? But in different situations, the solution of the issues is  different, "the Armenian President noted.

Referring to the topic of state support for start-up agricultural  companies, Sargsyan noted that those companies that work on the  ground and produce small amounts of products do not pay VAT at all.  "We do not have VAT on agricultural production, we mostly have small  farms in agriculture, so we always have to support them, depending on  the region we subsidize loans, we have regions that receive loans at  2% , under 3%, but not in the whole territory of Armenia.We are  encouraging the farm to switch to modern forms of work in  agriculture.In our case, this is drip irrigation, protection of the  harvest by grids and other, because we have a hail, then ha, a lot of  rain, so encourage ",  he said.

The Armenian leader added  that the state stimulates those people who  invest big money in a large greenhouse economy. "Spayka already has,  in my opinion, about 50 hectares of hothouse economy, has started  construction of 100 hectares, the market is big, the market is  solvent, I mean Russian and Eurasian, so it's just stupid not to use  these opportunities," the President of the Republic believes.

Sargsyan also responded positively to the question whether Armenia's  income was undermined by the Russian devaluation: "The stability of  the ruble is the most important thing here, it is the guarantee of  selling our agricultural products, because the contract is not always  in rubles, the businessman here is leading his economy to dramas.  Both the ruble and the dram are linked by the dollar. We have a small  economy, and, perhaps, it is easier to solve these issues. If we are  able to bring our exports to import in the near future, that is, lead  to some sort of balance, then, of course, always but it will be  stable, but for this we need to make great efforts, we are buying gas  not for rubles and for drams, but for dollars, and sell it to people  for drams. And then these dramas must be turned into dollars and  transferred to Gazprom means that we should sell cognac, tomatoes,  cucumbers for dollars so that you can then bring them to Armenia and  give these dollars for gas. "