Armenian official notes positive immigration trend

Iravunk, Yerevan
8 Apr 05

Excerpt from a Syuzi Melkonyan report by Armenian newspaper Iravunk on
8 April headlined “There is no immigration”

An interview with chief of the Migration and Refugees Department Gagik
Yeganyan.

[Correspondent] Have you got any information about those who left and
arrived in Armenia in 2004?

[Gagik Yeganyan] Since 1992, there have been three stages of the
outflow of Armenian residents. The first stage was in 1992-95 when a
large number of residents left the country. About 800,000 left Armenia
in the three years. Of them, 400,000 came back and 400,000 remained
abroad.

The second stage started in 1995 and lasted till 2001. The peculiarity
of this stage was that the negative migration indicator fell and stood
at 80,000.

In the third stage that began in 2002 and has been continuing up to
day, the negative migration indicator has been continuing to fall. In
2002, 3,000 left the country, 10,000 migrated in 2003, and for the
first time, we had positive figures in 2004. The number of those
arriving in the country exceeded the number of those who left by
2,060.

Thus, passenger traffic continued rising. In comparison with 2000, it
rose by 70 per cent in 2004.

[Correspondent] How realistic are these figures?

[Yeganyan] We have a simple calculation. All the seven border crossing
points give us information about the number of those who cross the
border.

[Correspondent] What countries do the Armenians mainly go to?

[Yeganyan] The overwhelming majority, about 65-70 per cent, have gone
to Russia, others to other CIS countries: Ukraine and Belarus; about
7-10 per cent are leaving for the USA, Europe and other countries.

[Passage omitted: Yeganyan says an agreement has been signed with
Qatar allowing Armenian nurses to work in that country]