Armenia's IT industry has huge unused capacity for dealing with Russia

YEREVAN, April 2. /ARKA/. Armenia's IT industry has a huge unused capacity for dealing with Russia, Karen Vardanyan, executive director of the Union of Information Technology Enterprises, told journalists on Thursday.

In his words, Russia's share in Armenia's IT exports is just 7%, while the United States' share is 66%.
“Taking into account our proficiency in language and culture of this market, we can say that our export capacity is almost not used,” Vardanyan said.

In his opinion, trust-based relations should be established between the two countries' companies, which may later develop into particular joint projects.  

Armenia exports 3D and animation products as well as games and mobile applications to Russia now, while in the future these directions can be expanded to high-tech levels.  

Vardanyan stressed that the Armenian law is quite liberal toward startup companies and the government has set considerable preferences for them.

This creates favorable environment for registration of joint startup companies in Armenia.   
Armenia had more than 380 IT companies in early January 2014. Of them, 159 operate with foreign capital or represent large foreign companies here.

In 2000, Armenian government announced IT industry development its top-priority objective.
The country's IT sector accounts for 20-25% growth every year.  The sector's share in GDP is 3.8%. In accordance with the IT development strategy, this industry's turnover is planned to be increased to $1 billion by 2018.  

On December 17, 2014, Armenian National Assembly adopted some laws implying government support for IT industry, especially for startup companies. In particular, startup companies are exempted from paying profit tax for the first three years of their activity and they will pay their income tax at a preferential, ten-percent rate. ----0----

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10:48 04/03/2015