‘425 million will not be given to ordinary farmers, and the subsidy will definitely be ineffective,’ said economist Hrayr Kamendatyan in an interview with Panorama.am.
According to the government’s decision, about 425 million drams will be allocated for the subsidization of the procurement and processing of peaches and apricots. The official aim of the program is to alleviate the issues of crop sales, but economist Hrayr Kamendatyan discussed the issue in a broader context in an interview with Panorama.am.
According to Kamendatyan, the current situation is a consequence of the authorities’ policies, as ‘these people are consistently not only damaging Armenian-Russian relations, but are leading towards a trade war.’ The economist noted that finding themselves in a trade war of their own making, the authorities are trying to allocate money to the affected, but he questions the fairness of distributing these funds.
‘The financial resources will go to regional administrations, they will have to give it to their acquaintances and close ones, and most of that money will go to them, ensuring the victory of the CP in the upcoming or next elections,’ Kamendatyan stated.
In the economist’s opinion, the subsidy should have been directed to the farmers, but this is not happening because ‘the farmer’s vote has already been taken, this farmer is not interesting to them.’
Referring to the processing companies, Kamendatyan noted that supporting them is economically illogical, as ‘the processors, on the contrary, have found themselves in ideal conditions, because the circulating funds they were supposed to spend are now being saved, having approximately 2-2.5 times more circulating funds.’
It should be noted that the total amount of financial resources needed for August is estimated at about 425 million drams, considering the projected volumes of 400 tons of peaches and 3,000 tons of apricots. The monitoring of procurement processes will be carried out by the staff of the regional governors.
Details in the video.
