ArmInfo. In Armenia, the trade turnover in January-February 2019 to the same period of 2018 slowed down the growth rate from 17.4% to 13.1%, making 412.1 billion drams ($ 846 million). According to the RA Statistics Committee, in February 2019 alone, trade turnover in Armenia increased by 18.4% to 224.2 billion drams ($ 459.1 million).
This trend is due to the slowdown in the growth of wholesale trade, against the background of the downward trend in car trade. In particular, wholesale trade in January-February showed y-o-y growth of 20% - up to 200.8 billion drams, against a growth of 34.1% a year earlier. The volume of purchase / sale of cars in January-February decreased by 9.3%, amounting to 13.3 billion drams, against a rise of 20.2 %% a year earlier. Only in February, the turnover of car trade decreased by 6.1% to 6.4 billion drams, while wholesale trade, by contrast, increased by 27.6% to 113 billion drams.
According to statistical data, the retail trade turnover in January-February 2019 against the same period of 2018 accelerated the growth rate from 5.1% to 8.6%, making 197.9 billion drams. In the structure of retail trade, the largest turnover is provided by stores (including supermarkets) - 77.5% or 153.4 billion drams (with y-o-y growth of 9.6%), other shopping facilities - 14.3% or 28.4 billion drams (from y-o-y growth of 14%), followed by consumer goods markets - 4.8% or 9.5 billion (with y-o-y decline of 9.3%), stalls and kiosks - 2.5% or 4.8 billion (with y-o-y growth of 17%) and agricultural markets - 0.9% or 1.8 billion (with y-o-y decline of 37.5%).
In the structure of the total trade turnover of Armenia, wholesale trade is dominant - 48.7%, followed by retail sales - 48.1%, with a small margin, and the remaining 3.2% comes from car buy/sell.
The average settlement rate of the dram against the US dollar in February 2019 was 488.41 AMD / $ 1, and in January-February - 487.10 AMD / $ 1, against 481.37 AMD / $ 1 in February 2018 and 481.88 AMD/$ 1 in January-February.