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Wednesday,
July 25,
2007, #140 (1407) Jewelry and goldsmithing production in Armenia dropped by half between the first half of 2006 and the same period in 2007, said an Armenian Ministry of Trade and Economic Development official on July 23, now amounting to just USD 71.5 million. Gagik Mkrtchyan, head of the ministry’s gemstone and jewelry department, said plummeting production in the last couple of years is due to a larger crisis on the world market. However, the jewelry market is beginning to recover, he said, and it’s now important to pass domestic measures to reinvigorate the industry. Armenia’s jewelry sector can regain its 2004 heights of USD 3.3 million in production, he predicted. Mkrtchyan says, according to the news agency Regnum, that the only way for Armenia’s jewelry industry to recover is to turn its sights on the Russian market—a process already underway, he adds. |
Armenian Jewelry Production Down 50 Percent 