Suren Karayan: Armenians from Diaspora invest in Armenia

ArmInfo. Minister of Economic  Development and Investments of Armenia Suren Karayan believes that  the investment environment in the country has always contributed to  attracting investments. He stated this on September 18 in an  interview with journalists before the opening of the 6th All-Armenian  forum "Armenia-Diaspora", which is held under the motto "Mutual  trust, unity and responsibility."

At that, responding to the remark  that Armenia's investment climate is not quite comfortable,  especially for the inflow of investments from the Diaspora, the  minister noted that Armenians from the Diaspora are investing in  Armenia. As Karayan noted, the volume of these investments was in  line with expectations.

To note, in the first half of the year 2017 foreign investments in  the volume of the order of more than $ 1.024 billion were received by  the real sector of the economy of Armenia. The growth was 36.6%. Of  these, almost $ 328 million came in the form of FDI (with an annual  growth of 26.3%). As explained in the Ministry of Economic  Development and Investments of Armenia, in the first quarter, $ 516.7  million (including FDI - $ 194 million) was received, and in the II  quarter - $ 507.7 million (including FDI - $ 133.9 million). At the  same time, the net flow of general foreign investment in the first  half of this year.  fixed at the minus level of $ 51.2 million, out  of which FDI - $ 35.6 million. In the total flow of net foreign  investment, positive gross volumes were recorded for offshore  companies in Jersey ($ 65.3 million) and Cyprus ($ 13.7 million), as  well as  United Arab Emirates ($ 1.1 million), Hungary ($ 806.3  thousand) and Cuba ($ 729 thousand), and large negative volumes in  France ($ 15.1 million), Canada ($ 11 million), Germany ($ 8.9  million) and the Netherlands ($ 8.5 million). In terms of FDI, large  positive net investments were recorded in Jersey ($ 65.3 million),  Germany ($ 15.7 million) and Great Britain ($ 3.4 million). The gross  volume of foreign investments received in the real sector of the  Armenian economy as of July 1, 2017 amounted to $ 13.98 billion, of  which $ 7.636 billion - FDI. The championship is held by Russia - $  5.083 billion, followed by Germany - $ 1.505 billion, Cyprus - $  1.056 billion and France- $ 1.055 billion.

To note, in February 2017 the Prime Minister of Armenia Karen  Karapetyan announced the possibility of attracting investments of $  3.2 billion in coming years. Of these, 830 - 840 million are expected  this year.  Topics by the end of 9 months of 2016, foreign direct  investment in Armenia amounted to only $ 92 million.