ArmInfo. Armenia and the United States discussed a wide range of issues of mutual interest during the 3rd meeting of the joint Council on Trade and Investment. This was reported by the press service of the RA Ministry of Economy.
In particular, according to the source, during the meeting, the parties raised issues related to technical barriers to trade, a generalized system of privileges provided to Armenia by the United States (GSP), sanitary and phytosanitary requirements for import to the United States, negotiations within the WTO, cooperation in the field of trade diplomacy, as well as possible areas of industry cooperation in connection with COVID-19, etc.
The session was chaired by Deputy Minister of Economy Varos Simonyan from Armenia and the Assistant Trade Representative Daniel Mullaney from the United States. Armenian Ambassador to the United States Varuzhan Nersesian and the United States Ambassador to Armenia Lynne Tracy participated in the session.
According to the report, the joint Armenia-US Council on Trade and Investment was founded in 2015 on the basis of the framework agreement on trade and investment signed between the governments of the Republic of Armenia and the United States of America, with the aim of strengthening and further deepening the Armenian-American trade, economic and investment cooperation, identifying obstacles, expanding and diversifying trade in goods and services between the parties.
To note, according to the data of the RA Statistical Committee, the foreign trade turnover between the RA and the USA in January July this year decreased by 50.6%, amounting to $ 69.5 million. At the same time, exports showed an increase of 11.3% to $ 33.7 million, while imports fell by 67.6 %% to $ 35.8 million