Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan gives an interview on CNN

Yesterday the CNN TV broadcast the interview with the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia given to the well-known economic commentator, journalist John Defterios.

Passages that are related to economic issues are presented below.

“The first problem that we encountered after the contraction was that the contraction was largely due to the fact that our economy was not sufficiently diversified. Our crises response focused on three areas: Further diversification of the economy, improving the infrastructure and improving the business environment, and we hope that with continued methods we’ll be able to further boost the environment and overcome the consequences of the crises.”

“Your exports represented 20% of GDP in the year 2000 and only 12% in today. How do you boost the industrial base then?”

“Unfortunately our trade balance still remains significantly negative. Export promotion is still a primary objective for us, and our exports are currently heavily reliant on three areas; mining, the IT and High Tech industry and tourism. ”

“What percentage of the economy still remains with the Diaspora. You have almost as many people living outside the country as you do within?”

“Of course the primary source of investment in the economy was the Armenian Diaspora and currently its shared in GDP can be estimated as high as 60 to 70%. Of course investments from the Diaspora came not only in the form of foreign direct investments, but also as private remittances which have helped Armenia to have calm the consequences of the economic contraction.”