ALL TERRITORIAL CUSTOM HOUSES AND POINTS OF ARMENIA TO BE COMPLETELY
IMPROVED BY LATE 2008

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 27, NOYAN TAPAN. Modernization of the Bagratashen
custom point will be completed soon. According to the chairman of the
RA State Customs Committee (SCC) Armen Avetisian, by late 2008, all
territorial custom houses and points will be completely improved and
brought into line with European standards in terms of service level. In
order to equip the customs system with modern equipment, nearly 4
billion drams has been invested this year, including 230 million drams
from the state budget, 170 milion drams – from extrabudgetary resources
of the SCC, while the remaining part was investments made by
international structures.

Speaking about 2007’s customs revenues, A. Avetisian said that the
collection will make 209-210 billion drams instead of the envisaged
amount of 188 billion drams.

Goods of 394 bln 924 mln drams were exported from Armenia this year
against goods of 382 bln 922 mln drams in 2006. Diamond exports make up
a large share of exports: it amounted to 91 billion drams in 2006 and
54 billion drams in 2007. As regards imports, according to A.
Avetisian, no quantitative growth of goods has been registered.
Instead, there has been a qualitative change: expensive and
high-quality goods are imported now, mainly from Europe, as a result of
which a 23.2% growth of imports has been registered. Imports made 1
trillion 51 billion 469 million drams in 2007 against imports of 853
billion 521 million drams last year.

Gasoline imports amounted to 160 thousand tons in 2007 against 163
thousand tons in 2006 – under conditions of 32% growth of gas imports.
Imports of diesel fuel grew by about 10 thousand tons as compared with
2006. 2 bln 720 mln cigarettes were imported in 2007 against 2 bln 465
mln ones in 2006.

In the words of the SCC chairman, an unprecedented growth has been
registetred in imports of cars. As of December 15, 2007, 32 thousand
cars were imported into Armenia against 28 thousand cars in 2006.

343 cases of customs violation of a total of 1 bln 176 mln drams were
registered this year, including 43 cases of smuggling and 252
violations of customs rules.

In 2007, 68 customs employees were dismissed from their jobs,
administrative fines were imposed on 19 employees.