According to the Russian customs services department, “Compared to the beginning of 2005, trade circulation between Armenia and Russia has grown by 66% and reached $200.1 million, meanwhile, export makes up $162.9 million (double growth) and import makes up $37.3 million”.” This was the information provided by “Arminfo” agency. We have to disappoint our readers since it seems that at least there is one country where we have more export than import and that’s Armenia. Of course, when reading the information readers may think so, but it is not true. The secret is very simple: the information was published by the Russian services, thus all what is export for them is import for us. In other words, we may change the words and write the same information as Armenians would write it, “The amount of import made up $162.9 million (double growth), and the export – $37.3 million. Now it’s worth comparing that information with the information of the Armenian statistics services (SS). According to the SS information, during the first six months of 2006 the amount of products exported to Russia went down by 5.5 % (the mark informed by the Russian customs services is 15.1%), as for the import capacity, it grew up by 29.9% (the Russian information is twice more, i.e. covers 100%).
We wonder which of these two sources of information is accurate. There is a good explanation. The Russian customs department can fix specific customs prices for goods, which is done on the basis of the law. Nevertheless, this fact does not justify the difference of 29.9% and 100% either. There are other explanations too. Our customs and statistics services may have changed the figures so as not to show the current situation connected with foreign trade. Otherwise, almost 70% of the import from Russia may be brought illegally without paying the customs fees. Maybe our customs services have not realized that so far. We hope this difference in information provided by the mentioned bodies will be useful for the institutions that are fighting against “shady economy” and the businesses that don’t pay taxes. We can’t say which one of the mentioned two versions is true. As for the information of our strategic ally, it will be better if they come to terms with their colleagues and then publish it.