Armenia`s top-5 trading partners  include Russia, China, UAE, Iran and Germany, with a combined trade volume of $6.3 billion

ArmInfo. The top-5 countries in foreign trade with Armenia are Russia, China, UAE, Iran and Germany, with a total volume of $6.3 billion, four of these countries reduced their volumes in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024 - Russia by 54.8%, China by 15%, UAE by 69.4%, and Germany by 3.3%. This is despite the fact that a year ago the Russian Federation, China and UAE demonstrated significant growth, while Germany was experiencing a more pronounced decline.

 At the same time, Iran managed to improve its annual dynamics, moving from a 6.8% decline to a 6% growth. According to the RA Statistical Committee, the significant decrease in the foreign trade volume between the Russian Federation and the UAE with Armenia is due to the neutralization of the factor of re- export and re-import of diamonds and gold. Overall, Armenia's foreign trade with the EAEU fell by 53.7% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024 (against a 2.5-fold increase a year ago) to $3.5 billion, while with the EU it grew by 9.5% (from a 23.7% decline a year ago) to $1.2 billion. Moreover, among the EAEU countries, a significant decline in volumes was recorded for the Russian Federation, while half of the EU countries opted to increase volumes - these are the Netherlands, France, Romania, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Slovakia, Finland, Italy, Poland, and Hungary. This change in annual dynamics reduced the share of the EAEU in the structure of Armenia's foreign trade from 43.7% to 36.8% (due to the Russian Federation - from 42.9% to 35.2%), while the share of the EU, on the contrary, ncreased from 6% to 12%.

For the first half of 2025, the leading five trading partners of Armenia - Russia, China, the UAE, Iran and Germany - contributed to a total  foreign trade volume of $3.4 billion, $1.2 billion, $1.1 billion, $342.5 million and $218.4 million, respectively. Particularly, trade with Russia saw imports decline by 66.3%  (to $2.1 billion), while exports decreased by 21.1% to 6.2% (to $1.3 billion). With China, exports dropped by 59.6%  to $288.3 million, while imports increased by 31%  to  $908.1 million, respectively. Trade with the UAE saw exports decline by 70.3% decline to $1.1 billion, with imports growing by 49.2%  to $39.2 million, respectively. In the case of Iran, in parallel with the exit of the import dynamics from a decline to a 10% growth, an acceleration of the export decline was observed from 5.3% to 14%, the values of which amounted to $297 million and $45.5 million, respectively. Trade with Germany saw increase by 77.9% to $53.1 million and imports decline by 15.7% to $165.3 million, respectively.

In terms of exports, the TOP-5 includes Russia, the UAE, China, Iraq ($171 million, with an increase of 95.4%) and Georgia ($77.9 million, with an increase of 5.2%), and in terms of imports, the leading five are Russia, China, Iran, Italy ($177.7 million, with an increase of 7.2%) and Germany.

Note  that in the past two years, Russia and the UAE  stood out among the destinations by significant volumes of exports and imports through Armenia through transit operations with precious metals and stones. According to customs data for the first half of 2024, the lion's share of diamond and gold imports came from Russia - 77% and 99.7%, respectively, and the dominant export of these precious metals and stones came from the UAE (77% diamonds and 64% gold). Almost the same picture emerged at the end of 2023, but then 46.7% of diamonds and 99.2% of gold came from Russia, which were also mainly exported to the UAE (84.6% diamonds and 71.4% gold). However, the current sectoral breakdown of Armenia's foreign trade (statistics for January-May 2025) already shows a significant decrease in the share of precious metals and stones to 19% of imports and 35% of exports (from 57% and 73%, respectively, a year ago).  This can be attributed to  changes in regulations: since 2025, it has become impossible to conduct such transactions in the previous volume due to the settlement of the issue of customs duties on jewelry within the EAEU, and the zeroing of duties on the import of jewelry from the UAE by Russia.

Armenia's foreign trade turnover for the first half of 2025 amounted to $9.7 billion, which is a 45% decrease  compared to the previous year when there was a  2-fold increase. Both exports and imports saw  a decline, with exports falling by 52.8 and imports-38.6% (from a 2.3-fold and 86.5% growth a year ago), reaching $3.8 billion and $5.9 billion, respectively. Armenia's negative foreign trade balance for the first half of 2025 increased by 29.4% per annum - to $2.2 billion, of which the negative $661.8 million and $585.5 million are the balance with the EAEU and EU countries.

Note that the forecasts of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA), the IMF and the WB regarding exports and imports for 2025 vary significantly. According to the CBA expectations (June forecast), after almost equal growth of exports and imports in 2024 by 35.6-31.4%, in 2025 foreign trade turnover will be in decline:  accordingly, exports will decrease by 32.3-36.4% and imports by 29-34.2%, with growth in 2026 of both exports by 5.4-5% and imports by 4.7-3.1%. In its April forecast, the IMF also predicted a decline in Armenia's foreign trade in 2025, but a more modest one: exports by 10.4% and imports by 5.4%. Unlike the CBA and the IMF, the earlier forecast of the WB (November) predicted a sharp slowdown in Armenia's foreign trade growth in 2025: exports to 5.6% and imports to 7%.