ArmInfo. A food surplus was registered for almost all groups of goods in the EAEU, with the exception of the only group - fruits and berries, where the deficit was about 55%. Member of the Board (Minister) in charge of Industry and Agriculture of the Eurasian Economic Commission Artak Kamalyan , said this during a briefing in Yerevan, answering a question from an ArmInfo correspondent.
He noted that, for example, in terms of grain in the EAEU, the surplus is about 50 million tons, sugar - 1 million tons, etc. "From the point of view of food self-sufficiency, the EAEU has no problems. Therefore, in agro-industrial policy, we put more emphasis on developing interaction between the EAEU member states in order to enter the markets of third countries, '' he said
With regard to Armenia, answering a question from an ArmInfo correspondent, the EEC Minister noted that in terms of the volume of supplies of Armenian products to the EAEU market, the latter are small, but not because Armenia is working poorly, but the question is that the volume of agricultural production itself is small.
In this context, Kamalyan recalled that in general, the volume of arable land in the Republic of Armenia reaches 450 thousand hectares, which is incomparable with millions of hectares in the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan. "No matter how well we work, the share of Armenian agricultural products in the EAEU market is small," Kamalyan said.
At the same time, he stressed that despite the small production volumes, Armenia has shown good results in terms of exporting agricultural products to the Eurasian market. To note, according to the RA Statistical Committee, the gross output of agriculture and fisheries in Armenia increased by 1.8% in the first half of 2020, amounting to 255.7 billion drams.