Armenia exported agricultural products for the total amount of $879 million during the first 9 months of 2022, Armenian Economy Minister Vahan Kerobyan on Monday.

His remarks came at the joint session of parliamentary standing committees at the National Assembly during the discussion of the 2023 state budget draft.

In fact, as the minister noted, we are talking about an indicator which was planned only for 2028. At the same time, according to official statistics, there was a 0.7% decline in agriculture during the same period. A government spokesman attributed this discrepancy to statistical inaccuracies.

"As a result of our discussions with the State Committee, we came to the conclusion that for accurate calculations we need to ensure the adoption of the law "On Agriculture," as well as to begin widespread accounting of farms and get them to submit data on their turnover. At the moment we have only estimates, not real statistics," said the minister.

Kerobyan said, in particular, that the "Law on Agriculture" is scheduled for adoption in 2023. At the same time, the Statistical Committee plans to conduct an inventory of agriculture in the same year, namely to clarify the number of farms, their property and their condition.

According to unspecified data, there are about 317 thousand farms in Armenia today. As a result of enlargement of communities their number will be reduced to 280 thousand by 2026. According to the head of the Ministry of Economy, this is done in order to increase productivity in the field of agriculture.