YEREVAN. – At its session today, the Armenian government extended for three months the timeframe for imposing a state duty of 14,000 drams on imported cement.

The question was presented by Deputy Minister of Economy Avag Avanesyan.

"As a result of the duty, the monthly volumes of cement imports from Iran have declined somewhat, but the volumes of clinker imports have increased instead," he said. "Therefore, we propose to extend this period of operation until July 1 (...) in order to provide better regulation."

Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan, in turn, reminded that this regulation provided for a duty only for cement imports, and no duty was levied on clinkers.

"With this project, the implementation of the mechanism will only be extended for three months, during which we will understand the extent of further adjustments, and whether or not there will be a need to set a state duty for clinker, too, so that producers in Armenia can continue their production," he said.

Tigran Avinyan noted that this regulation was a necessity as the import of cement endangered the production of cement in Armenia.