The minister spoke about the growth mark during January-June and noted that the fall in production was due to the crisis in the field of diamond production. Even though diamonds worldwide are the same, the money capacity paid for it has gone down because of the fact that USD is falling in its price, as well as people don’t demonstrate much demand to this product, thus its prices are going down. As for the competitiveness of our domestic diamond production in the international market, in times like these when the national currency is growing in price, the minister said that in a short period it would stagnate, but from its long-term view it was a positive factor for Armenia.
In regard to tourism in Armenia, he said that the field was developing. In response to a question as to why people preferred Batumi more, the minister replied, “They have nostalgic memories from the Soviet period”. “I don’t see any problems here, it is a normal process”, said the minister.
The minister said that one of the main flaws in Armenian economy was the current business management. He said that he hoped that one day, businessmen would understand that they’d better hire good specialists than their relatives. As for work places the minister said a very interesting thing; according to him, there are many open job positions, but since people get money from their relatives abroad they prefer sitting at home and not look for a job.
In response to a question as to whether the ministry of trade and economical development advocated the recommendation to make Armenia a free trade zone, the minister said, “Our ministry will always advocate everything that contains the term “free”, regardless of who the minister is”. We hope that this kind of ideology only concerns the economy.