YEREVAN. – Zhoghovurd daily of Armenia writes: Officially, the volume of cargo transportation in Armenia increased by 10.4 percent. But, on the other hand, rail freight decreased by 7.9 percent in the [first] 9 months of this year. During the mentioned period, the volumes of domestic cargo transportation by rail also decreased by 2.2 percent, instead the volumes of automobile cargo transportation increased by 17.5 percent.

If we look at automobile cargo transportation according to its purpose, we see that exports increased by 24.7 percent, imports, on the contrary, decreased by 0.4 percent.

The volume of cargo transportation by air is a very small number in the overall. But even in the case of these small volumes, an increase of 68.8 percent was registered in case of imports. Exports by air transport fell sharply—making 24.1 percent.

The volumes of "highway pipeline" cargo transportation deserve special attention; in this case, the growth was 7 percent. Moreover, the official statistics do not separate exports and imports in the case of this type of cargo transportation, as the general word is only about imports—and a specific type of product in that: [natural] gas. That is, we can state that [natural] gas imports to Armenia have increased during the first 9 months of this year compared to the same period last year.