ENA, Yerevan centralization, construction and gasoline
ENA and the future investor
Gortsarar aliq FM106.5 · 21 minutes
“If it is state-owned, becomes state-owned, in the next two years there will be a demand to solve these problems, and let’s assume it will require large investments. Now which businessman will come and say, yes, I will come to you to make an investment, if there is a fear that not tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow, they can also take those investments away from him. The network we have, the infrastructure, is a legacy from the Soviet Union, and that is a big problem, because in reality, it is not electricity production that is the most expensive in that total, but the electrical infrastructure itself. The economic security of the Republic of Armenia will belong to whoever wants to make those investments in the next ten years, be it the Republic of Armenia, be it the Russian Federation, or another country.”
The growth that remained in Yerevan
Euromedia24 · 27 minutes
“At the moment, 79 percent, almost 80 percent, of the wage fund is formed in Yerevan, whereas in 2018 it was 70 percent, meaning that the growth we have had in recent years has mainly been in Yerevan. The GDP indicators are the same: at the moment, about 60-65 percent of GDP is formed in Yerevan, whereas in 2018 it was 50 percent. The trade indicators are the same: 75 percent of retail and wholesale trade is registered in Yerevan, the same is with lending: 75 percent of lending is carried out in Yerevan.”
Construction and bank loans
Gortsarar aliq FM106.5 · 25 minutes
“In 2022, a fairly large amount of capital also flowed into the Republic of Armenia, which caused, first of all, significant growth in the banking system. That year, the net profit of the banking system increased three times. The main investment sector in the Republic of Armenia, where they actually invest, was construction, these funds went into construction, buildings began to grow like mushrooms. According to the Central Bank, the level of non-performing loans as of February 2024 was only 0.01 percent, that is, out of ten thousand people who took out an apartment with a mortgage loan, only one was unable to pay it. This is a rather low figure, because if we compare it with European countries, this figure is 1.8 percent. The banking system provides new loans to problem borrowers to service existing loans, which cannot be a long-term policy.”
The two-tier gasoline market and electric cars
Gortsarar aliq FM106.5 · 25 minutes
“Our market is two-tiered, and there is nothing like this anywhere else, from the perspective that we see that there is a regular gasoline price, let’s say at the moment premium is sold for 530 drams, and there is a slightly more expensive premium, which is sold for 560-580 drams. Our market finds other alternatives to gasoline, the first of which is electric cars. In 2025, that quota was extended to 8,000, and most of those 8,000 were consumed within the first three months, meaning the market has a great demand for electric cars. Basically, this expensive gasoline price was addressed not by solving these big geopolitical problems, but by importing electric cars, which is good from the perspective of economic security, because we will not import gasoline from Russia, but will produce electricity ourselves.”