In the first half of this year, Armenia has increased beer exports to Russia by almost nine times, according to RIA Novosti’s calculations based on data from the UN Comtrade platform.

Accordingly, Russian companies had bought beer from Armenia for only $576,300 in the first six months of last year, these purchases have reached $5.15 million in the same period this year.

Armenian exports actively grew in Russia during the first half of the year. In January, Russia had bought beer from Armenia for only $188,000, but in June this number reached $1.7 million.

At the same time, Armenia itself buys a considerable amount of beer from abroad, and this year the cost of respective imports has increased by 1.7 times, reaching $7.2 million. Russia remains its main beer supplier, while Russian beer shipments grew more modestly, by 18 percent. And the main beneficiaries of Armenia’s growing demand for foreign beer were the EU countries.