Monday, September 9 2024 13:14

ArmInfo. In Armenia's foreign trade, the share of precious metals and stones in imports and exports reached 69-55% in January-July 2024 (from 19-11% a year earlier), thereby increasing in total turnover from 14% to 61% over the year.

According to the RA Statistical Committee, during the reporting period, these products were imported for $6.4 billion, and exported for $6.04 billion. In both cases, the already high annual growth rates recorded earlier accelerated even more - from 89.3% and 2.5 times to the current 9.1 times and 7.9 times, respectively.

For compa

rison, we note that a sharp increase in this article and its emergence as a dominant in Armenia's foreign trade began to be observed already in 2022, accelerating more and more significantly in the following two years. In particular, in 2022, precious metals/stones and products made from them were exported for $989.3 million (with an annual growth of 3 times), and imported for $690.8 million (with an annual growth of 2.8 times).

Then in 2023, significant growth in exports and imports of precious metals/stones and products made from them not only continued, but also accelerated to 3.2-3.3 times, reaching export volumes of up to $3.2 billion and imports of up to $2.3 billion. This trend continued in 2024, and the growth rate was much higher. With such a picture of the export and import of precious metals and stones, the dynamics and volumes of production in the jewelry industry look very modest: in 2022, an increase of 51.8% - up to 42 billion drams, in 2023, a jump of 4.9 times - up to 230.9 billion drams, and already in 2024, during January-July, growth weakened significantly to a meager 1.2%, with an accompanying significant drop in volumes to 38.2 billion drams ($ 96.6 million).

According to experts, the very fact that precious metals and stones have become significantly dominant in exports and imports over these years, with low production volumes in the jewelry industry, already indicates re-export and re-import, which, judging by the data for January-July 2024, are still taking place. According to customs data for the first half of 2024, the main volume of gold exports went to the UAE (84.2%), while imports went to Russia - 95.9%.

The predominant volume of diamonds was also exported to the UAE (82.7%), while they were imported mainly from India (45.2%), Russia (21.4%) and Hong Kong (19.7%). According to statistics, such an advantage of precious metals and stones in Armenia's foreign trade has weakened the positions of previously traditionally dominant export and import items - mineral products, machinery, equipment and mechanisms, finished food products. Thus, the export and import of mineral products, after a weakening of the growth rate in 2022 and entering a decline of 13.6-6.9% to $887.7 million-1.1 billion in 2023, in January-July 2024 only exports managed to grow by 18% to $589.3 million, while imports continued to decline by 4% to $613.7 million.

This worsened the position of mineral products in exports from 2022 to August 2024 from 1st to 3rd, losing the lead in volume to precious metals and stones and lagging even behind the volume of machinery, equipment and mechanisms. The same decline in positions during this period was observed for mineral products in imports. Machinery, equipment and mechanisms in exports for more than 2.5 years, despite the deterioration of the dynamics from growth to decline, managed to hold on to the 2nd position, while in imports a strong weakening of the growth rate cost the loss of primacy with a descent by one step. According to the results of January-July 2024, the volume of exports of machinery, equipment and mechanisms amounted to $ 701.9 million (a deterioration in the annual dynamics from growth by 5.3 times to a 5.4% decline), and imports - $ 1.5 billion (a slowdown in annual growth from 2.1 times to 4.1%). Food products in exports stagnated in 2023 and already began to decline during January-July 2024, ending up in 4th place with an annual decline in volumes by 2.2% to $477.7 million, and in imports, a strong slowdown in the growth of this item to 10.7% (to $374.9 million) cost the company from the top five. In total, the volume of exports for January-July 2024 exceeded $8.7 billion, with an acceleration of annual growth from 62.1% to 2.2 times, and the volume of imports reached $11.7 billion, with a less pronounced acceleration of annual growth from 63% to 79.1%.

This accelerated the annual growth of foreign trade turnover from 62.6% to 95%, with a volume of $20.4 billion. In exports, the UAE took the lead, displacing Russia to 2nd place, followed by China in 3rd place, and Iraq and Georgia in 4th and 5th places. In imports, the first two positions continue to be occupied by Russia and China, followed by Iran, Germany and the United States in the top five.