Exports of 5 billion drams and investments of 1.5 billion - DFA sums up the year
The Development Foundation of Armenia (DFA) has multiplied or improved the main results of its activities in 2017. During today’s annual summarizing press conference, the CEO of the DFA Armen Avak Avakian presented the data.
As the press release by the Foundation informs, the CEO of the Foundation answered the questions of journalists. In 2017, three global changes have been made in the Foundation: first, the DFA mandate has been changed from the general development foundation to a business-oriented structure. In addition, the tourism development component has been removed from the DFA’s functions, the list of the DFA services has been supplemented by a project platform and aftercare. In the line with the new mandate, the Foundation’s structure has been changed. During the year, 23 times more output has been achieved for each dollar spent on the export promotion.
Last year due to the DFA’s support about 70 companies of the food, jewelry, shoe, light industry, winemaking and other spheres participated in the international exhibitions. As a result of exhibitions, export contracts worth of 5.11 billion drams were signed with foreign wholesale buyers and suppliers, which are successfully implemented. And, at the “WorldFood Moscow 2017” our pavilion was named as the best.
The Aftercare Team of the DFA started to resolve addressable the problems emerged in the activities of 8 foreign and local investors. During this year there were made investments worth of 15.388mln USD, and 124.5mln USD investment is expected.
This year, the DFA has created a network of official representatives composed of professional, dedicated individuals who are not paid by the government. Due to them, the DFA is now represented, and carries out export and investment promotion activities in the US, Russia, China and European countries. To compile the network, the DFA’s International Cooperation team has selected 35 representatives from 2,000 candidates. The Foundation is currently working on processing the presented export projects in order to provide appropriate batch.
Additionally, the DFA has provided a new platform for new business connections for hundreds of Armenian companies by organizing more than 600 B2B meetings, conferences, business missions and investment campaigns.