YEREVAN. – The combination of Armenian climate conditions and state-of-the-art Dutch technologies create excellent preconditions for developing greenhouses and entering the foreign market. These preconditions have laid the ground for the launch of an investment program on the establishment of massive greenhouses in Armenia. For this purpose, undeveloped lands will be allocated in various regions of Armenia, with a total area of 2,000 hectares.
The Armenian Harvest Promotion Centre (AHPC) CJSC has initiated the program, according to whose estimations, approximately 300,000- 350,000 tons of vegetable can be grown annually in 500-hectare heated greenhouses, and 75,000 tons in 1,500-hectare unheated polycarbonate greenhouses, mainly for the purpose of annually supplying vegetable to Russian trade networks.
In the beginning of May, the RA Government approved the proposal of the Yerevan Municipality to allocate a 63-hextare land in the vicinity of Noragavit district. The highly profitable program will be implemented in this area in the upcoming months. Advanced foreign technologies will allow the crops’ average productivity to reach 60-70 kg/square meter here.
The AHPC conducts talks with the investors who have expressed interest in buying land for the purpose of constructing greenhouses. The program initiators will provide the investors with infrastructures supplying thermal and electric energy, gas and water, and will assist in receiving loans.
“This is an unprecedented large-scale program which will promote the development of the infrastructures, transportation channels, and the establishment of powerful cool storage facilities. Following the program on the construction of greenhouses in the vicinity of Noragavit district, 8-10 greenhouse zones will be established in different regions of Armenia, with a total area of 500 hectares, and, in the meantime, unheated polyethylene greenhouses will be constructed in a 1,500-hectare land,” said Aleksan Arakelyan, the Investment Director at the Armenian Harvest Promotion Centre CJSC. According to his estimations, the first crop will be harvested in 2013.
The Armenian Harvest Promotion Centre CJSC was established in 2011. It is a public and private partnership where 49 percent of the shares are held by Small and Medium Entrepreneurship Development National Center established by the RA Government, and 51 percent is owned by the private sector.
