“We are having a significant increase in exports of goods and services to the Russian Federation this year, and this remains a factor that has a significant positive impact on our current economic activity,” he told lawmakers.
Armenia was initially expected to be hit hard by the barrage of sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and other Western powers on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. Russian-Armenian trade fell in March but recovered strongly in the following months as the Russian economy proved more resilient than expected.
Armenian government data shows that it was up by more than 70 percent year on year from January through August 2022. Armenian exports to Russia doubled to almost $1.1 billion in the eight-month period, generating nearly 38 percent of the South Caucasus country’s overall export revenue.
Khachatrian also pointed to an increase in the numbers of Russian tourists visiting Armenia as well as the influx of tens of thousands of other Russians who have left their country since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
The minister went on to note a surge in individual cash remittances from Russia to Armenia, calling it “the third most important factor in terms of economic developments of this year.”
According to the Armenian Central Bank, the remittances from Russia tripled to almost $1 billion in the first nine months of this year. They accounted for just over two-thirds of total remittance inflows to Armenia.
As a consequence, the Armenian national currency, the dram, has strengthened against the U.S. dollar by about 22 percent since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24.
Visiting Yerevan earlier this month, Russian Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov described Armenia as “one of the beneficiaries of the resetting of Russia’s economy and flows of goods and services” resulting from the Western sanctions.