Armenia's Economic Pulse

[Haykakan]

Re: Armenia's Economic Pulse

The economy gained jobs and businesses that would otherwise not be. Those firms would not be investing in Armenia if they thought it was a bad investment. You are painting a one sided dark picture of this situation when in truth this news is not dark at all. Sure these will be imports taken from current account but you know there is a inflow of capital which these firms are investing in Armenia and this is inflow on financial account. Plus there will be either new building to be built or vacant ones filled which is even more good economic news. Please do not join the Vrej bandwagon of everything is horrible and hopeless because that is not true. There is hope and opportunity despite the monopolistic and oligarchal forces at play. I am not happy at all with the style of capitalism being practiced globally and in Armenia but there is no reason to take good news and twist it into something bad when it is not bad at all.

[Federate]

Re: Armenia's Economic Pulse

Armenia PM tours xxxelry free economic zone construction site



July 08, 2014 | 13:04
YEREVAN. – Prime Minister of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan on Tuesday visited the Meridian xxxelry free economic zone construction site in capital city Yerevan.

Abrahamyan observed the activities to set up goldsmithery, diamond production, and watch-making in the zone.

Armenian xxxelers’ Association Chairman Gagik Gevorgyan informed the PM that the company is making a capital investment that is equivalent to about $14 million.

Numerous world-renowned companies are expected to conduct activities, and around 1,000-1,200 new jobs should be created in this free economic zone.

Initial intention agreements already are signed with eight companies, and cooperation with twelve others is in the negotiation phase.

In addition, a more than 10,000-square-meter exhibition center will function in the xxxelry free economic zone.

http://news.am/eng/news/218147.html

[Haykakan]

Re: Armenia's Economic Pulse

SCIENCE INC. BUYS ARMENIAN APP MAKER

Friday, July 11th, 2014

http://asbarez.com/124901/science-inc-buys-armenian-app-maker/

Inlight, whose logo is shown above, was featured as a 'Best New App'
by the Apple App Store

YEREVAN (TechCrunch)--Looks like Science Inc. is getting more serious
about mobile development -- the startup studio is announcing that
it has acquired an eight-person company based in Yerevan, Armenia
called Inlight.

That company developed the iOS app of the same name, a social
newsreading service targeting women. Science CEO Mike Jones and Chief
Business Officer Peter Pham both told TechCrunch that while the firm
will continue to support the app, the real purpose of the acquisition
was hiring a mobile development team to support Science companies.

That gets at one of the reasons that the firm calls itself a studio,
rather than another incubator or accelerator -- it doesn't just fund
and mentor companies, but also employs a team that can build products
and provide other services to its companies (it invests in some of
those companies and owns others outright). At this point, Pham said
Science has built "a code base to launch e-commerce companies,"
so that, for example, any Science company in that area can launch
"with all the analytics and optimization pieces built in."

Science companies include Dollar Shave Club, DogVacay, and, through
an acquisition, Delicious.

And even though the firm is headquartered in Santa Monica, it has
a development team in India, too. What's been lacking, Jones said,
is a team that's specifically focused on mobile.

"Part of my belief on mobile is that we need to take a lot of bets
very quickly," he said. "And the belief was that in order to do that
we really needed a best of breed, fast development team."

Pham added that having the team in place could help Science "experiment
more with just pure social products," an area that hasn't been a big
focus yet (despite Jones' experience as a former CEO of Myspace). He
said it would also be useful for Science companies that are "maybe
not a core mobile company" -- they need to build a mobile app but it
doesn't necessarily make sense to employ a mobile developer full time.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

[Mher]

Re: Armenia's Economic Pulse

Armenia seems on the verge of losing its competitive advantage in IT sector– World Bank report

YEREVAN, June 19. / ARKA /. Since 2006, the sector, excluding Internet service providers, has grown with a CAGR of 22% reaching the total output of $294m in 2013, according to a World Bank report titled “IT skills assessment in Armenia”

It says the number of companies operating in the sector has reached to about 380, the number of employees- 8,000. About 13% of the companies operate in High-technology domain, while the rest are IT companies.

One of the driving factors of the sector growth was its attractiveness for foreign companies to establish branches in Armenia. The prime competitiveness pillar is the availability of relatively cheap and competitive human resources in Armenia. Currently, Armenia seems on the verge of losing this competitive advantage.

Due to growing number of IT companies in Armenia, demand in IT specialists will continue to increase. According to the conservative estimation, if the market and productivity continue to grow with an average rate of 18% and 1% respectively, the absorption potential of additional IT specialists will grow at a rate of 17% annually and reach 15,000 by 2017.

The sector is undergoing a major transformation right now: there is an increasing shift from the outsourcing model to the model of own product development and entrepreneurship in the sector. This model of growth requires a higher level of knowledge, new skills (such as sales skills), entrepreneurial knowledge.

The outsourcing model mostly fostered the growth of the sector as well as attraction of international companies and FDI. The model is based on the outsourcing activities, which can be sustained because of low-cost on a global labor market and high-quality workforce, beneficial to foreign companies. Thus, the model is built on the basis of cost-competitiveness.

The current developments in the sector are towards higher value added entrepreneurship model. The presence of international companies, which bring sector-specific culture into the country, and international startup boom force the development of the model among IT and high-tech specialists.

The further developments are expected to drive the market towards the more value-added and growth of the sector. Educational sector needs to quickly adapt and reflect these challenges in order to sustain the sector competitiveness.

In order to sustain the growth based on the high quality labor force, the country currently faces the issue of providing sufficient supply. The increasing demand for IT skills is a global trend, but in Armenia it is more constraining due to small size of the labor force and the country and increase in competition between the local industry and multinationals. At the current point of development of the sector, this is a complex issue, as the skills gap increases with the positive dynamics and development of the industry. This implies that the shortage of the skills is increasing in parallel with the sophistication of the industry.

IT and High-technology companies view the mismatch between the supply and the demand of the skilled IT labor as a key factor that hinders the growth of the sector.

Currently, the university degree is not viewed as a crucial decision factor in recruitment by companies, indicating the diminishing role and image of higher education in the sector due to the insufficient quality of graduates. Companies consider the Master’s degrees to have a limited benefit on top of knowledge gained through undergraduate studies. This observation demonstrates that Master’s Degree programs in IT and High Tech are not adequately meeting market expectations.

Also, there is a possibility of a limited sophistication of the IT market that doesn’t yet require high end skills obtained from Master’s Degree.

Overall, the higher education system in Armenia lacks the competitive dynamism and efficiency when it comes to IT skills. The quest to join European Higher Education Area pressures Armenia to reform. Armenia is undertaking reforms through the Bologna process in order to join the European Higher Education Area.

Currently, the number of graduates with IT specializations annually closely coincides with the annual demand in the overall market, but only 45% of the graduates consider or qualify to be employed in the sector, thus, creating a quantitative imbalance of workforce.

http://telecom.arka.am/en/news/telecom/armenia_seems_on_the_verge_of_losing_its_competitive_advantage_in_it_sector_world_bank_report/#sthash.oQbkCQtf.dpuf

[Artashes]

Re: Armenia's Economic Pulse

Armenia seems on the verge of losing its competitive advantage in IT sector– World Bank report

YEREVAN, June 19. / ARKA /. Since 2006, the sector, excluding Internet service providers, has grown with a CAGR of 22% reaching the total output of $294m in 2013, according to a World Bank report titled “IT skills assessment in Armenia”

It says the number of companies operating in the sector has reached to about 380, the number of employees- 8,000. About 13% of the companies operate in High-technology domain, while the rest are IT companies.

One of the driving factors of the sector growth was its attractiveness for foreign companies to establish branches in Armenia. The prime competitiveness pillar is the availability of relatively cheap and competitive human resources in Armenia. Currently, Armenia seems on the verge of losing this competitive advantage.

Due to growing number of IT companies in Armenia, demand in IT specialists will continue to increase. According to the conservative estimation, if the market and productivity continue to grow with an average rate of 18% and 1% respectively, the absorption potential of additional IT specialists will grow at a rate of 17% annually and reach 15,000 by 2017.

The sector is undergoing a major transformation right now: there is an increasing shift from the outsourcing model to the model of own product development and entrepreneurship in the sector. This model of growth requires a higher level of knowledge, new skills (such as sales skills), entrepreneurial knowledge.

The outsourcing model mostly fostered the growth of the sector as well as attraction of international companies and FDI. The model is based on the outsourcing activities, which can be sustained because of low-cost on a global labor market and high-quality workforce, beneficial to foreign companies. Thus, the model is built on the basis of cost-competitiveness.

The current developments in the sector are towards higher value added entrepreneurship model. The presence of international companies, which bring sector-specific culture into the country, and international startup boom force the development of the model among IT and high-tech specialists.

The further developments are expected to drive the market towards the more value-added and growth of the sector. Educational sector needs to quickly adapt and reflect these challenges in order to sustain the sector competitiveness.

In order to sustain the growth based on the high quality labor force, the country currently faces the issue of providing sufficient supply. The increasing demand for IT skills is a global trend, but in Armenia it is more constraining due to small size of the labor force and the country and increase in competition between the local industry and multinationals. At the current point of development of the sector, this is a complex issue, as the skills gap increases with the positive dynamics and development of the industry. This implies that the shortage of the skills is increasing in parallel with the sophistication of the industry.

IT and High-technology companies view the mismatch between the supply and the demand of the skilled IT labor as a key factor that hinders the growth of the sector.

Currently, the university degree is not viewed as a crucial decision factor in recruitment by companies, indicating the diminishing role and image of higher education in the sector due to the insufficient quality of graduates. Companies consider the Master’s degrees to have a limited benefit on top of knowledge gained through undergraduate studies. This observation demonstrates that Master’s Degree programs in IT and High Tech are not adequately meeting market expectations.

Also, there is a possibility of a limited sophistication of the IT market that doesn’t yet require high end skills obtained from Master’s Degree.

Overall, the higher education system in Armenia lacks the competitive dynamism and efficiency when it comes to IT skills. The quest to join European Higher Education Area pressures Armenia to reform. Armenia is undertaking reforms through the Bologna process in order to join the European Higher Education Area.

Currently, the number of graduates with IT specializations annually closely coincides with the annual demand in the overall market, but only 45% of the graduates consider or qualify to be employed in the sector, thus, creating a quantitative imbalance of workforce.


http://telecom.arka.am/en/news/telec....oQbkCQtf.dpuf

Welcome back Mher.
I understand what's been posted above, but strongly disagree.
This mumbo jumbo in essence just said ... These Hayr are doing fantastic and growing rapidly (so) they are going to crash and burn because there are only 2.8 million of them.
Nonsensense. They forgot you!!! They forgot the rest of the diaspora. They discount our ability to adapt and change.
They are WRONG.
We have just begun.
The reports of our death are grossly premature.
Simply take your pulse, then laugh.

[Mher]

Re: Armenia's Economic Pulse

Welcome back Mher.
I understand what's been posted above, but strongly disagree.
This mumbo jumbo in essence just said ... These Hayr are doing fantastic and growing rapidly (so) they are going to crash and burn because there are only 2.8 million of them.
Nonsensense. They forgot you!!! They forgot the rest of the diaspora. They discount our ability to adapt and change.
They are WRONG.
We have just begun.
The reports of our death are grossly premature.
Simply take your pulse, then laugh.

thank you!
honestly I don't think its the bad news it's perceived to be
it's better than there is small growth but more competitive jobs than slave wages. After all this isn't China, we don't have population to spare. I met someone from Yerevan who was computer programmer who said he made 2,500 dollars/a month (a significant amount in Armenia) but that he wasn't satisfied and was planning on moving to Miami were he could make $25,000/month (highly unrealistic) doing the same thing. So it's better that these people are snatched by nearby European and Russian companies and have those job and skills be more than simply a stepping stone out of the country

[Mher]

Re: Armenia's Economic Pulse

Armenian government allows Pharmatec to establish production of medicines in free economic zone


YEREVAN, July 17. / ARKA /. The Armenian government has allowed today Pharmatec company to establish production of medicines at a free economic zone in the territory of Mars plant in Yerevan. The permission is valid for three years

Economy minister Karen Chshmarityan said Pharmatec was founded in 1998 by a sole shareholder – a British company called EuroCambridge

He said Pharmatec is engaged in manufacturing of drugs, intravenous solutions and pharmaceutical supplies, the bulk of which are exported to other countries.

He said also the company plans to double the number of employees as well as to invest $11.2 million, of which $4.5 million will be spent on the purchase of new equipment to expand production.

Armenia’s first-ever tax-free business zone created for high hi-tech manufacturing companies is located in the premises of Mars electronics plant and a research institute in Yerevan.

It is run by Russian company Sitronix.

http://arka.am/en/news/economy/armenian_government_allows_pharmatec_to_establish_production_of_medicines_in_free_economic_zone/#sthash.6c60JQds.dpuf

[londontsi]

Re: Armenia's Economic Pulse

[londontsi]

Re: Armenia's Economic Pulse

[Artashes]

Re: Armenia's Economic Pulse

Although I can't understand what's being said, I see an --- OPEN PIT MINE ----.
That's enough to raise the "red flag" warning.
No matter where these mines operate, the vaste majority pollute and contaminate the emmediate surroundings to toxic levels.
Extreme concern and vigilance is the first step.
Second step is to somehow amass or access the authority do have meaningful oversight.