The trade sector of Armenia in January 2018 accelerated the rate of annual growth from 9.4% to 17.3%

ArmInfo. In Armenia, the trade sector in January 2018, by the same period of 2017, accelerated the annual growth rate from 9.4% to 17.3%, making 157.4 billion drams ($ 326.4 million).

According to the National Statistical Service of Armenia, this trend is due to the acceleration of the annual dynamics of the turnover of retail and wholesale trade, and the preservation of an upward trend in car trade.  In particular, wholesale trade in January showed an annual growth of 33% - up to 67.2 billion drams, against growth of 14.8% a year earlier. The volume of purchase/sale of cars in January increased by 7.2%, amounting to 6.2 billion drams, against growth of 64% a year ago.

According to statistics, the retail trade turnover in January 2018 by the same period of 2017 accelerated growth to 7.8% from 3.6% a year earlier, to 84 billion drams. In the structure of retail trade, stores (including supermarkets) provide the largest turnover - 75.6% or 63.5 billion drams (with an annual growth of 12.5%), other retail facilities - 14.1% or 11.8 billion drams the annual decline of 3%), followed by the consumer goods markets - 6.2% or 5.2 billion (with an annual decline of 10.1%), stalls and kiosks - 2.4% or 2 billion (with annual decline by 12.3%) and agricultural markets - 1.7% or 1.4 billion (with an annual growth of 12.5%).

Retail trade dominates the structure of Armenia's total trade turnover - 53.4%, followed by wholesale trade - 42.7%, and car buying/sale - 3.9%.

The average calculated exchange rate of the dram to the US dollar was 482.40 dr / $ 1 in January 2018, compared to 486.01 dr / $ 1 in January 2017.