ArmInfo. In the period from January 1 to March 31, 1.6 thousand farmers applied for agricultural loans (the total loan amount of which amounted to about 6.8 billion drams), however, from April 1 to April 20 alone this figure doubled. Deputy Minister of Economy of Armenia Arman Khojoyan announced this on April 22 during a press conference in the Unified Information Center. "Today, Armenian banks are very busy, this indicates a high interest and demand of farmers for agricultural loans, as part of the state anti-crisis measures program," he said.
In this regard, Khojoyan said that as a result of the monitoring, it was revealed that the level of targeting of agricultural loans is 90% -95%, and non-repayment - 0.5% -1%. "That is, there is no need to talk about the plight of farmers, they are able to service their loans," the deputy minister emphasized.
In general, relying on the operational data of the Central Bank, according to him, over the 2nd package of anti-crisis measures, more than 13 thousand applications have already been received for a total of 27.6 billion drams. At the moment, 2.9 thousand applications for 4.3 billion drams have been approved.
At the same time, the deputy minister noted that discussions around the development of new packages to support agriculture in the context of the crisis associated with coronavirus infection are ongoing, in particular, options are being considered for making changes to existing projects, which will be announced soon. In this vein, Khojoyan did not rule out that state aid can be provided not only to those farmers who want to deal with growing intensive gardens, but also to those who prefer to engage in traditional gardening.
Deputy Minister of Economy Tigran Gabrielyan in turn emphasized that there are already 15 beneficiaries in intensive gardens (versus 20 for the whole of 2019) who intend to develop intensive gardens in the Republic of Armenia with a total area of 43 hectares. You can familiarize yourself with the conditions for the provision of state aid in the framework of the 2 package of anti-crisis measures by clicking on the following link: https://finport.am/full_news.php?id=41345&lang=2.
