TRANSPORT PROBLEMS REMAIN MAIN HURDLE TO BOOSTING TRADE WITH RUSSIA

Armenpress
Oct 13 2005

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 13, ARMENPRESS: Armenian defense minister Serzh
Sarkisian, who is also the Armenian cochairmen of the Russian-Armenian
commission on economic cooperation, said yesterday transport
problems were the main hurdle for drastic boosting of trade with
Russia. Addressing a recurrent meeting of the commission in Yerevan
Sarkisian said trade between the two countries in the first half of
this year was up 30 percent.

His Russian counterpart, transport minister Igor Levitin, said
Russian-Armenian trade-economic partnership was exemplary for other
CIS member countries. Vahagn Movsisian, the director of the Armenian
Development Agency, cited several figures, saying that inflation in
the first half of the year was 7 percent, GDP growth upped 15 percent,
a 5 percent higher from a year ago.

Levitin also said they were going to look into what should be done to
give a boost to a ferryboat line running from Georgian port of Poti
to Russian port of Kavkaz, but he blamed its inefficient operation
on small volumes of goods the ferryboat takes aboard.

Armenian prime minister Andranik Margarian met today the Russian
minister to discuss ways for enhancing bilateral trade. The government
press office said the two sides expressed satisfaction with growing
trade that constituted $120 million in the first six months of this
year. Margarian was reported to reaffirm Armenian government’s
readiness to help restore railway communication across Georgia’s
breakaway region of Abkhazia.