YEREVAN. - March didn’t bring positive changes into retail trade in Armenia. Last year the physical volume of product sale in the Republic began to show tendencies towards reduction. The current year brought about the decline in the volume of commodity turnover in the current prices. The reason behind this is the reduction in foreign private transfers.   

In March the volume of retail turnover in the current prices was reduced to AMD 6,3 billion. In the capital’s shops the decline in the turnover volume in the current prices amounted to roughly AMD 3,5 billion.

The reduction in the turnover puts the trade companies in a rather tight corner. Since part of the losses in trade is permanent in nature, this causes decline of profits in case of turnover reduction. At worst, the trade companies will merely go bankrupt.

Within a year, the number of trade kiosks in the country has been cut down by 667 units, including 364 units in the capital Yerevan. Visually it’s impossible to determine the number of the closed shops because of the changes in the methodology of statistical accounting. Specifically, currently the number of shops also includes their branches, which have no legal status.

This is the reason which caused artificial increase in the number of trade units. Besides, the inclusion of the branches in the calculation concealed the actual reduction in the number of shops. In Yerevan, where there are many large trade company branches, the number of shops has decreased by 22 points. But actually many more shops have ‘closed up’.