Ways of creating conditions for the activation of economic interaction in the Eurasian area were discussed

For the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union, and especially for Armenia, which has a small domestic market, the development of the export-oriented industry is vitally important, which in turn implies a fairly high level of industrial cooperation with the partners of the EAEU member states. This belief was expressed by the President of the Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen of Armenia, Chairman of the EAEU Business Council, Arsen Ghazaryan, at the “EAEU for Business” held within the framework of the “Eurasian Economic Forum-2024” launched on September 30 in Yerevan.

Emphasizing the importance of industrial cooperation, the speaker also mentioned the obstacles that stand in the way of the development of industrial cooperation, including lack of or insufficient funds and high rates on bank loans, which make it difficult to finance joint commercial projects, long distance and high transport costs for cooperative shipments, the lack of information from reliable sources about the possibilities of establishing partnership relations.

“There are still no centralized resources to establish business relations between the business entities of our countries, cooperation between large companies and small and medium-sized enterprises is underdeveloped,” added the head of the UMBA.

According to Arsen Ghazaryan, based on the great distance with EAEU member states and the lack of a common border, Armenian enterprises should be guided by the fact that joint products should meet the following requirements: low material consumption, low energy consumption, be labor-intensive and knowledge-intensive.

In his assessment, in terms of industrial cooperation, such fields as precision engineering, in particular radio electronics and artificial crystal processing, information technology, jewelry, including processing of precious and semi-precious stones, pharmaceuticals, light industry, etc., are promising for Armenia.

“It is obvious that for further successful integration within the framework of EAEU, it is necessary to work actively and consistently towards the elimination of obstacles and unevenness in mutual trade, to avoid making decisions that do not contribute to the deepening of integration processes, to drastically reduce the level of bureaucracy, to reduce the number of various documents required in the union’s circulation today” , – said Arsen Ghazaryan, detailing that the businessmen point out the problems of technical regulation, VAT, tax formulations in terms of customs administration, existing problems in individual sectors.

The participants of the panel session discussed the contribution of integration processes in the Eurasian area to the improvement of business conditions, as well as the optimal ways to achieve the synergistic effects of integration through the expansion of business activity in the territory of the Union.

The meeting was attended by the leaders of EAEU member states, Cuban business associations, as well as the heads of the UN International Trade Law Commission.