Armenia’s economic minister about migration of Armenian businessmen to Georgia

Official Yerevan is reacting to the clearly visible trend of Armenian businesses moving to Georgia. Armenian Minister of Economy, Tigran Davitian however refutes the fact saying that these are simply isolated cases rather than a clear tendency with no statistics to back such assertions. Davitian commented that Armenians setting up businesses in Georgia is an example of Armenia’s foreign investments - the search for new markets being a normal development of economic relations. Many small countries such as Holland and Belgium invest in different countries around them. Journalists asked the minister if Armenians were investing in Georgia then surely they should be doing more than simply registering their business in Georgia. The Minister mentioned that there are 250,000 business entities registered in Armenia, of which 160,000 are operating actively. There are entities with foreign capital in Armenia, and the launch of a couple of dozen enterprises in a neighbouring country does not mean there is a trend of outflow of Armenian capital as it is only 0.05% of the total Armenian entrepreneurship. In 2010 there were 103 Armenian companies registered in Georgia.