ArmInfo.There will be no problems with ensuring food security in Armenia. Armenian Finance Minister Tigran Khachatryan expressed this confidence on March 21 in an interview with journalists.
The head of the Ministry of Finance called on the citizens of the Republic of Armenia to be conscious. According to him, if the Upper Lars checkpoint (the only land road linking Armenia and Russia, ed. note) suddenly closes for several days due to worsening weather conditions, which will lead to problems with the supply of a number of goods, this does not mean that it is necessary to sound the alarm and sow panic. In any case, as Khachatryan assured, today there are no problems with food security and there will not be. Touching upon possible problems with the supply of grain, Tigran Khachatryan noted that on a global scale, the volumes of wheat consumed by Armenia are very small. The Minister expressed confidence that Armenian entrepreneurs are capable of supplying the domestic market with as much wheat as is necessary to provide the population with bread.
It should be noted that the day after the official announcement of the introduction of a temporary embargo on the import of grain and sugar to the EAEU countries, and after the country's population began to "attack" stores, buying not only flour, sugar, but also olive oil and macaroni products, the Minister of the Economy of Armenia, Vagan Kerobyan assured on his Facebook page that at present, the Republic of Armenia is not predicting a shortage of products included in the minimum food basket. Meanwhile, the country's authorities previously did not want to respond in any way to the concerns of the media and the public, who raised this issue two weeks before, especially in the context of the fact that before the 44-day war, Armenia met the domestic demand for grain in the amount of 80% by importing grain from the Republic of Artsakh. Today, according to experts, the level of self-sufficiency in grain is about 70%. The main exporting countries of agricultural products to Armenia are Russia (38.0% of the country's total agricultural imports), Ukraine (9.8%), and Brazil (6.2%).
On March 14, head of the Food Safety Inspectorate of Armenia, Georgi Avetisyan, assured that there would be no problems with products in the next 2-3 months. "Negotiations are underway to be able to provide (supplies - ed. note) in the future," he said. At the same time, Georgi Avetisyan forcasts a rise in prices for grain imported to Armenia from other countries. He clarified that since the other producing countries, Canada and Australia, which are major players in the grain sector, are far from Armenia, consequently the import of goods will be more expensive.
