ArmInfo.Gross savings (investments) of Armenia by July 2022 rose by 51%. Armenian Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan stated this in a conversation with journalists on the sidelines of an event dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the Investment Council of Armenia (ICA) in Armenia.
"This suggests that our policy aimed at stimulating investment is bearing fruit. And we must redouble our efforts, because our goal is to bring the volume of investments to 25% of GDP>, he said, noting that today the volume of investments in the RA GDP covers about 18%.
Speaking about cooperation with ICA, Kerobyan highly appreciated the interaction, noting its effectiveness. In this regard, the minister noted that, together with the Council, a number of programs are being implemented that facilitate business activities. In this context, he said that by joint efforts last year it was possible to change the procedure for providing bank guarantees in the public procurement process. "This, in our opinion, had a great economic effect - hundreds of billions of drams immediately entered the market," he stressed.
At the same time, Kerobyan noted the important role of the ICA in the work of the SME Council. He stressed that during the discussions, several projects are approved that have a positive impact on the environment created for SMEs in Armenia.
It should be noted that the Investment Council of Armenia was established in 2007 within the framework of cooperation between the Government of Armenia and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in order to create an institutional platform for dialogue between the private and public sectors to address the problems of the business and investment environment, and implement reforms.
During the period of its activity, the Council managed to implement more than 25 reforms in the tax, customs, in the field of inspection bodies, in the issue of facilitating entry into export markets, food imports, leasing, modernization of the economy, in the field of public procurement, etc.
According to the Statistical Committee, the real sector of the Armenian economy received $1.6 billion in total foreign investment in the first half of the year (all types and forms of investment, ed. note), with a slowdown in y-o-y growth from 35% to 23%. At the same time, the volume of foreign direct investment (FDI), on the contrary, accelerated in growth from 50% to 68%, reaching $623 million or 40% of the total volume of foreign investment. It should be noted that the RA Statistical Committee publishes data on foreign investments once a quarter, indicating them in AMD equivalent and in the form of gross flow - accumulated volume (without repayments) from 1988 to the reporting date, in this case, to June 30, 2022. To prepare this material, ArmInfo specialists calculated the volumes of the reporting period themselves, taking as a basis the statistical data of the gross flow in the corresponding periods of 2022 and 2021 (H1). (The settlement rate of the dram as of June 30, 2022 was 407.21 AMD/$1). Such statistics do not give real figures on investment income for a specific period of time, however, they show the general dynamics and trend. In 2021, the volume of total foreign investment (all types and forms of investment - ed. note) in the real sector of the Armenian economy increased by 54% (against a 39% decline in 2020), reaching $ 2.8 billion. The share of FDI in total foreign investment in 2021 accounted for 29% (against 26% in 2020) or $798 million, which is 71% higher than in 2020 (against a 21% decline in 2020).
