ArmInfo. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will provide Armenia with 45 million euros, 39 million of which in the form of a loan under the loan and grant agreement Yerevan Customs and Logistics Center. The proposals to sign the relevant agreements were approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Armenia on September 4 at a regular meeting.
As stated in the explanatory note to the documents, within the framework of the agreements, out of the allocated 45 million euros, 39 million will be received in the form of a loan in two tranches (30 million and 9 million euros). Another 875 thousand euros will be provided for technical assistance (mobilization) of the program as a grant.
Co-financing by the Republic of Armenia will amount to 9 million euros, of which 7.8 million euros will be provided through loan funds (within tranche - 6 million euros and tranche 2 - 1.8 million euros), another 1.2 million euros will be allocated through grant funds.
Within the framework of the program, it is planned to build an administrative building of the State Revenue Committee on 5.6 hectares (at the expense of the state treasury) and the Center for Foreign Economic Activity (FEA) - on 13.5 hectares.
It is noted that the creation of the Yerevan Customs and Logistics Center will allow FEA participants to provide high-quality services and ensure the necessary efficiency of customs control.
It is also planned to build in the Yerevan FEA Center: - a warehouse (with a solar power station on the roof), an inspection and unloading building with an area of about 7,000 sq. m, - a service hall and an administrative part of the FTA center: 2 underground (shelter) and 2 above-ground floors with an area of about 2,800 sq. m, - a parking lot for trucks for 408 cars, - a daytime fire extinguishing tank and a pumping station for the entire center with an area of about 1,200 sq. m, - a two-story laboratory with a total area of 1,000 sq. m, - a site for installing dosimetric devices, a building for the orderly and collective inspection of cargo with an area of 2,100 square meters, - a parking lot for vehicles with limited entry into the center's territory for 28 cars.
On the administrative territory, it is planned to build a main building with an area of 20,000 square meters, a canteen for staff with an area of 600 square meters, a warehouse, a boiler room, a transformer substation with an area of 2,000 square meters, a parking lot for citizens with an area of 3,000 square meters, a parking lot for employees with an area of 4,000 square meters, roads and other auxiliary buildings on the administrative territory.
In terms of trade turnover, 80,354 (maximum 714 per day) and 70,901 (maximum 573 per day) transit declarations of TT IM type (transportation from the customs authority of entry to the inland customs authority) were processed from the state border checkpoints to the temporary storage warehouses (terminals) of the customs service located in Yerevan in 2023 and 2024, respectively. At the same time, the Yerevan Customs Service Management Center carried out control, servicing and customs clearance of goods transported from the state border checkpoints to the temporary storage warehouses located in Yerevan by about 71,715 trucks in 2023 and about 70,017 trucks in 2024.
The net weight of goods declared under the import procedure in Yerevan amounted to 1,463.5 thousand tons in 2023 and 1,602.7 thousand tons in 2024.
The Yerevan Customs and Logistics Center will be located at the following address: Gevorg Chaush Highway #5, Proshyan village, Nairi community, Kotayk region, RA
The terms of the draft loan agreement are as follows: loan amount: EUR 39 million; a grant of EUR 6 million will be provided for the implementation of the project from the EU Neighborhood Investment Platform (NIIP) funds; loan interest rate type: floating; annual loan interest rate: 6-month Euribor + 1% margin; frequency of loan servicing payments: semi-annually; a one-off fee of 1% of the loan amount, payable separately for each tranche on the effective date or date of availability of the loan or within 7 days thereafter; commitment fee: 0.5% per annum, calculated on the unused amount of the loan, starting 60 days after the signing of the agreement for Tranche 1 and 60 days after the availability of the loan for Tranche 2. Principal amount of the loan The loan amount will be repaid in 22 equal semi-annual payments, separately for each tranche. Loan term: the term of Tranche 1 is 15 years from the date of signing the loan agreement, of which the grace period is 4 years; the term of Tranche 2 is 15 years from the date of receipt of the tranche, of which the grace period is 4 years. The interest rate on the full and outstanding amount of the loan or part thereof may be changed from floating to fixed in accordance with EBRD procedures (minimum EUR 5 million). The loan term is 5 years from the date of signing the Agreement or at any later date specified and communicated by the EBRD.
In general, the loan funds provided for by the Agreements will be used to implement the construction works of the Foreign Economic Activity Center "Yerevan", purchase goods and services, as well as provide consulting services for the implementation of the Project, and the grant funds - for the construction of the Foreign Economic Activity Center "Yerevan" and the purchase of equipment.
We remind you that on May 14, an agreement was signed in Yerevan on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to provide Armenia with a grant of 2 million euros and a loan of 10 million euros for the construction of the Foreign Economic Activity (FEA) Center - a logistics and customs terminal in the city of Sisian in the Syunik region. Then, in a conversation with ArmInfo, the former head of the State Revenue Committee of the Republic of Armenia Rustam Badasyan said that at this stage it is planned to build two Foreign Economic Activity Centers in Syunik (in 2022, 373 thousand tons of cargo were declared in the Southern Customs Administration, and in 2023 - 569 thousand tons) and in Yerevan. A competition has already been announced for the construction project of the latter, which will be located in the village of Proshyan. It is possible that, in addition to state financing, loan funds from the EBRD and the EU will also be attracted for the implementation of this project, he noted. As Giorgi Akhalkatsi, Head of the EBRD in Armenia, stated at the beginning of 2025, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invested 396 million euros in the Armenian economy through 19 projects in 2024, which is the highest level of investment in the history of the Bank. "The total number of the Bank's projects in Armenia reached 224, with the total investment amounting to 2.6 billion euros, and private sector investments amounting to 84 percent," he noted.
