YEREVAN WILL START GSP+ SCHEME BY NEXT YEAR, SAYS MINISTER
By M. Alkhazashvili (Translated by Diana Dundua)

The Messenger, Georgia
Sept 26 2007

Nerses Yeritsian, Armenian Minister for Trade and Economic Development,
announced at an EU-Armenia Cooperation Committee session that Armenia
should land GSP+ status by next year-as long as the country manages
to implement some key measures.

GSP+ status would help small Armenian businesses enter the EU market,
Yeritsian said. He also commented that the EU is the Armenia’s
biggest trade partner with 40 percent of Armenian exports going to
EU countries, according to the Regnum news agency.

The GSP+ system will mean zero tariffs for 7200 types of products.

Currently Armenia operates under the Generalized System of Preferences
(GSP), a trade scheme meant to encourage healthy growth of developing
countries.

Yeritsian also touted Armenia’s economic growth of 13 percent and
relatively low inflation levels.

The state central bank has taken pains to reduce inflationary effects
of the large influx of remittances and money transfers to Armenia
from abroad. Roughly 70 percent of that money comes from Russia,
with most of the rest from the US.

Yeritsian also declared that in the first half of 2007, trade turnover
with the EU reached USD 666.6 million, 35.2 percent of the country’s
total trade turnover.

In that period, goods worth USD 252.3 million were exported to EU
countries, 47.8 percent of Armenia’s total exports; imports from
the EU were valued at USD 414.3 million, 30.3 percent of the total
import figure.

EU investments in Armenian reached USD 32.5 million in the first half
of the year, including USD 23.6 million in direct investments.