YEREVAN. – The limit of Armenia’s working preferential loans for the small and medium-sized enterprises should be raised, a group of Syrian-Armenian small and medium-sized business owners told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“The problem is that the Syrian-Armenian small and medium-sized entrepreneurs prefer to open small production facilities, which require more initial investments, as compared to trade,” they said.

Startup loans for the small and medium-sized enterprises in Armenia are provided for up to 5 million drams (AMD), and at a 10 percent reduced interest rate and for up to five years.

“You brought the machines, let’s say for 5, 7, or 10 thousand [US] dollars [USD]; [but] you will not have money left to buy raw material, [and] work. That’s why we believe that the limit of these loans should increase slightly,” the businessmen said.

They added, however, that the other problem is that both the equipment and the production raw materials are primarily imported to Armenia. And due to the recent drop in the AMD exchange rate, the aforesaid AMD 5 million has now dropped from around USD 12.5 thousand to a little more than USD 10 thousand.