YEREVAN. – Accession into the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is appealing for the cheap segment.

President of the Armenian Wine Makers’ Union, Avag Harutyunyan, told the aforesaid to Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“The accession [of Armenia] into the EEU was not an economic, but a political decision,” Harutyunyan said. “We [i.e. Armenia] were exporting goods to Russia before the accession and today, as well; nothing has changed in terms of percentage. The accession was to give us the opportunity to use the existing resources. But after the fall of the [Russian] ruble exchange rate, we saw what happened. The EEU became appealing solely for the cheap segment.”

The expert noted, however, that this situation likewise is not convenient for Armenian businesses because they are forced to sell their products either at cost price or even below.

In Avag Harutyunyan’s words, the Armenia-based businesses have two options for getting out of this situation. They either will have to increase productivity, which is impossible, or enter a higher-value domain by reducing the volume of production.

“In the second case, the problem is not within the EEU, it’s within us; we need to develop a long-term export concept,” he added. “The primary objective of this concept shall be the creating of expensive products—wines, brandies, etc. We need to give up exporting cheap goods. For example, farmers need to develop expensive crops, which give very expensive [vegetable] oil.”

Armenia joined the Eurasian Economic Union on January 1, 2015.