ArmInfo. In Armenia's foreign trade, transactions with precious metals and stones have been declining since 2025, amounting to 24% ($2.7 billion) in total volume over 7 months against 59.4% ($11.7 billion) a year ago. This category of goods played a decisive role in the deterioration of the annual dynamics of the country's foreign trade turnover, which fell from a significant 95% growth to a significant 42% decline. Thus, according to the Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia, in January-July 2025, the share of imports and exports of precious metals and stones in total trade fell to 18.1% and 33.2%, respectively, while in the same period last year it was 52% and 69%. In terms of volume, during the reporting period, these products were imported for $1.3 billion and exported for $1.5 billion: over the year, their imports fell by 77.5%, and exports - by 75.7%.
For comparison, 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).
Further in 2023, the 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 $2.7 billion. This trend continued in 2024, and despite some slowdown in growth, the pace remained impressive (2.5-2.7 times), further increasing export and import volumes to $8 billion and $7.4 billion, respectively.
However, starting in 2025, the volumes of transactions with precious metals/stones began to decline, and at an impressive pace, which worsened the annual dynamics of export and import volumes from impressive growth to a significant decline (from growth by 7.9-9.1 times in January-July 2024 to a decline of 75.7-77.5% in January-July 2025).
At the same time, production volumes in the jewelry industry continue to look very modest: for 2022 - 42 billion drams (an increase of 51.8%), for 2023 - 230.9 billion drams (a jump of 4.9 times), for 2024 - 53.2 billion drams or $ 135.4 million (a decline of 32.2%). The downward dynamics continued in 2025, as evidenced by the decline in volumes in January-July by 62.5% per annum (to 16.2 billion drams or $ 41.5 million), and a year ago a strong slowdown in growth rates was already visible from 58.8% to a meager 1.2% with a volume of 38.2 billion drams ($ 96.6 million).
According to experts, the very fact that three years ago precious metals and stones began to significantly dominate exports and imports, with low production volumes in the jewelry industry, already indicated a sharp increase in re-exports and re-imports, which, judging by the data for 2024, were still taking place.
However, 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 products within the EAEU. It is known that since 2020, the Russian Federation has more than three times submitted a proposal to the EEC to zero out the import customs value for colored precious stones and small-sized diamonds up to 0.2 carats. But the issue was never resolved - Armenia blocked the zeroing of duties. Due to the import customs duty on precious stones, it was much more profitable to import finished jewelry products from third countries that are not members of the EAEU than to produce them on the territory of the union. The import duty rate on finished jewelry is lower than the rates on precious stones (10-15%) for its production. However, since 2025, this "high-yield" effect has been lost. Russia has zeroed out duties on the import of jewelry from the UAE.
The real volumes of re-export and re-import of precious metals and stones are evidenced by the customs data of Armenia for 2024, according to which diamonds and gold imported mainly from Russia (73% and 99.4%, respectively) were exported mainly to the UAE (74.8% diamonds and 70.2% gold) and Hong Kong (16.4% diamonds and 20.2% 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 exported to the UAE (84.6% of diamonds and 71.4% of gold) and Hong Kong (2.7% of diamonds and 25.4% of gold). Customs data is usually published semi-annually and annually, and, judging by the speed of their preparation, will be posted on the department's website 6-7 months after the reporting period, i.e. for the first half of 2025, at best, they will appear in December, and for the whole of 2025 - in August 2026.
According to statistics, despite a significant drop in transactions with precious metals and stones, this article still retains its leadership in exports, but has lost its primacy in imports. It is worth noting that the previously traditionally dominant export and import items - mineral products and finished food products, having yielded their positions to precious metals, machinery, equipment and mechanisms, still cannot regain their leadership in foreign trade. But the duration of the decline in transactions with precious metals and stones allows us to assume that in the short term, mineral products and finished food products will restore their positions.
In particular, in terms of export and import of mineral products, after a slowdown in growth rates in 2022 and a decline of 13.6-6.9% in 2023, both exports (by 15.1%) and imports (by 0.3%) were able to grow in 2024. Then, in January-July 2025, imports increased by 4% and exports by 5.9%, amounting to $645.9 million and $625.4 million, respectively, which, compared to the dynamics of a year ago, indicates an improvement in the import trend (with an exit from the 4% decline) and a slowdown in export growth (from 18%). This shifted mineral products in exports to 4th position (now behind not only precious metals and stones, but also machinery/equipment and finished food products). In imports, mineral products also ranked 4th, with a small difference in volume, yielding 3rd position to "land, air and water transport", and being much further from the leading "machinery, equipment and mechanisms" and "precious metals and stones" that moved to 2nd position.
Exports of machinery, equipment and mechanisms for January-July 2025 reached $683.2 million, and imports - $1.5 billion. The annual dynamics of these indicators are downward: exports slowed in decline from 5.4% to 3.1%, and imports decreased by 0.4% (against 4.1% growth a year ago). Machinery, equipment and mechanisms took the lead in imports, since the previously leading precious metals/stones dropped significantly in volume, and in exports they lingered in 2nd position, less and less noticeably yielding in volume to the still leading precious metals/stones.
Exports and imports of finished food products improved in annual dynamics, showing high double-digit growth of 30.6% and 21.1%, respectively, while a year ago there was a decline in exports by 2.2% and a relatively modest growth in imports by 10.7%. The volume of exports of finished food products in January-July 2025 reached $650.9 million (3rd position), respectively, and imports - $454.6 million (5th position).
In total, the volume of exports for January-July 2025 exceeded $4.4 billion, with a reversal of the annual dynamics from growth by 2.2 times to a 49.6% decline, and the volume of imports amounted to $6.99 billion, also with a deterioration in the annual dynamics from 79.1% growth to 35.8% decline. As a result, the volume of foreign trade turnover fell by 42% year-on-year (against 95% growth a year ago), amounting to $11.4 billion in January-July 2025. Moreover, in the country breakdown, a strong deterioration in the annual dynamics of foreign trade turnover is recorded for the leading countries: Russia (from 2.4-fold growth to a 52.1% decline), the UAE (from 7.3-fold growth to a 67.9% decline) and China (from 41.6% growth to a 12.5% decline). In particular, in the direction of the Russian Federation, both imports (by 63.9%) and exports (by 5.6%) fell, in the direction of the UAE, a 68.7% decline in exports was accompanied by an import growth of 34.3%, and in the direction of China, a 53.4% decline in exports was accompanied by an import growth of 24.2%.
It is noteworthy that the foreign trade turnover between Armenia and the EU reached 9.6% growth (from 21.4% decline a year ago), reaching $1.4 billion in January-July 2025. This was due to the improvement in the annual dynamics of imports from 19.4% decline to 11.5% growth and the same reversal in the export trend from 26.3% decline to 4.5% growth, the volumes of which amounted to $1.05 billion and $346.7 million, respectively.
The EU's share in the total volume of foreign trade increased over the year from 6.5% to 12.2%, in particular in exports - from 3.8% to 7.8% and in imports from 8.7% to 15%. At the same time, the foreign trade turnover between Armenia and the EAEU worsened in annual dynamics from a 2.3-fold growth to a 51% decline, amounting to $4.1 billion in January-July 2025, which was the result of a significant drop in imports by 63.4% (against a 4.4-fold growth a year ago) and exports that lingered in decline with a slowdown from 21.2% to 5%, the volumes of which amounted to $2.4 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively.
The share of the EAEU in the total volume of foreign trade decreased over the year from 43.1% to 36.4%, and the decline in the share of imports from 61.4% to 35% was accompanied by an increase in the share of exports from 20.4% to 38.5%. It should be noted that both the Central Bank of Armenia and the IMF forecast a decline in both exports and imports for 2025, but the rates they predict differ greatly.
Thus, according to the Central Bank's expectations (June forecast), after almost equal growth in exports and imports in 2024 by 35.6-31.4%, in 2025 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 for 2025, the IMF predicted a more modest decline in Armenia's foreign trade: exports by 10.4% and imports by 5.4%. The World Bank has not yet updated its forecast for Armenia's foreign trade in 2025, but in early November it already predicted a strong slowdown in growth of both exports to 5.6% and imports to 7%.
