14:26, 1 June 2022

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan assures that they are in daily touch with the Russian partners in order to solve the problem of queues of trucks at the Upper Lars border checkpoint as quickly as possible.

The minister said he will meet his Russian counterpart in Lars on June 11 to discuss the possibilities of enhancing the clearance capacity of the checkpoint.

Minister Kerobyan said they are very concerned about the situation in the Upper Lars checkpoint, but assures that he and his partners are dealing with this issue on a daily basis.

“All European directions, that used to come through Belarus and Ukraine, now have to enter Russia through Turkey and Georgia. Therefore, there is a big traffic there. However, we understand that this is a heavy problem for exporters, and we work on several directions in order to mitigate the burden”, he said.

For example, the minister reminded that the ferry communication will start operating between Georgia and Russia from June 15. He said the government allocated nearly 2.5 billion drams for the subsidy of the first 6 months.

“Secondly, last week I had a major consultation with the Russian partners. We agreed to meet also in the Upper Lars on June 11 to jointly understand what opportunities we have in order to further accelerate the clearance capacity of the Upper Lars. I think we will be able to do so to greatly mitigate this tension at the beginning of the season”, he said.

The minister said that despite these difficulties, the export growth from Armenia comprised 20%.

As for serving the EAEU cargo separately at the checkpoint, the minister said the negotiations are underway in this direction, there is some progress, but no final positive result has been achieved yet.