Friday, 12 October 2012
Transcript Of Joint Press Conference By RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan and RF Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov
The question bears on the long-term economic cooperation program until 2020 as signed between Armenia and Russia.
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan – The program includes cooperation in almost all sectors of economy, with clearly specified mutual concerns and goal-oriented strategic actions. The strategy is a very complex program, which has been developed by the working groups and covers all the areas of economic, cultural and social cooperation.
Dear colleagues, the issue relates to the economic cooperation agreement until 2020 that we signed today. The question was about the nature of the document, I replied that the document actually includes the mutually beneficial cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Armenia in all directions, including not only economic, but also social and humanitarian issues are reflected in the two sides' positions of principle, reflected in the very provisions that are of mutual interest
The question bears on the Armenian-Russian economic relations and investments.
RF Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov - Mr. Prime Minister, dear colleagues, the economic cooperation between our two countries is developing quite dynamically, with up to USD1 billion trade turnover recorded last year.
This year’s 8-month statistics show that we have already exceeded the mark of 800 million and are bound to overcome the threshold of 1 billion dollars.
The overall level of investment has come to USD3bn for the last 20 years, with around 2.5 billion dollars of direct investments from Russia to Armenia
Thus, we can see a large amount of investment, the bulk of which is direct investment. That is specific investments are made in enterprises to develop logistics and business far from being of the so-called portfolio nature.
As regards the relative fall in the levels of investment, I feel that considering the current trends it is still early to draw any conclusions whatsoever.
Anticipating the year-end statistics, it should be noted that the investment process is of intermittent nature since it is common for investors to build their programs closer to the yearend based on financial investments and resource centralization, therefore we can draw conclusions only after giving the figures of 2012: Thank you.
Question - What is the situation with the gas price hike?
RF Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov – The matter has been taken up during the intergovernmental commission’s sitting. Talks are still underway. Yhe representatives of Gazprom and the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources are in attendance and we are moving forward step by step. I am confident that as always, everyone will benefit from the agreements.
