Tigran Khachatryan: In 2020, the agricultural sector of Armenia will  enter a positive trend

ArmInfo. In 2020, Armenian agriculture will be able to break through a positive trend and ensure growth after a long decline registered in the previous years.  Answering the question of ArmInfo correspondent, Armenian Minister of  Economy Tigran Khachatryan stated this at a January 14 press  conference.

However, according to him, to ensure long-term growth, the state  needs to work to increase the efficiency of use of resources, in  particular land. "In the case of inefficient use of resources, even  the use of the latest technologies will have a limited impact on  increasing efficiency in the industry," he said.

In this regard, Khachtaryan recalled the "Land Bank" project, the  concept of which is currently under consideration by the RA  government. In particular, the head of the economic department noted  that the project provides for electronic mapping of lands indicating  their owners. The second component relates to legislative  regulations, since it involves the creation of an information base  and the introduction of a land monitoring system to determine their  status (whether they are used). If land is determined to be unused,  then applying legislative levers, the government will have the right  to oblige a particular landowner to either use these agricultural  lands for their intended purpose, or transfer them to another  interested person on the basis of a lease, or sell them.

Using official data, the Minister noted that according to the results  of 11 months of 2019, a decrease of 4% was registered in the  agriculture of the Republic of Armenia. In this vein, Khachatryan  emphasized that the agricultural sector of Armenia will end the year  2019 with indicators inferior to 2018. <I believe that 2020 will be  better for agriculture, but the results of our policy will be  tangible in the long run>,- he said.

To recall, since 2016, the agricultural sector of Armenia has been  showing a decline. In particular, in 2016, the decline was recorded  at 5%, in 2017 - 2.9%, and by the end of 2018 - by 7.3% .