Tuesday, August 21 2018 19:06

ArmInfo. Chairman of the Agrarian and Peasant Association Hrach Beriberyan intends to sue the Minister of Agriculture of Armenia Artur Khachatryan. The expert said  this during a press conference on August 21.

The reason for this intention, as he said, was an abuse  to  Berberyan, voiced by the minister in one of the domestic media. To my  statement that "unprecedented indicators on the export of apricots  from Armenia "do not correspond to reality, the minister called me  uncultured,not being even familiar to me,  a man who does not know  anything about agriculture," he said.

In continuation of the above and  to justify own position, Berberyan   cited the conclusions of other experts on the inconsistency of the  "unprecedented" indicators announced by the Ministry of Agriculture  on the export of apricots. "In Armenia, in total, the area of apricot  gardens is 6.5 hectares, their yield on average is 70 thousand tons.  Of these, 22 thousand tons cover domestic demand, 10% - spoil under  trees, 15 thousand tons - taken by  purchasing entities. And how, in  these conditions can we talk about the export of 44 thousand tons? "-  Asked the head of the association.  According to him, the statement  caused serious material damage to the work of the organization he  headed. In particular, according to him, payment of membership fees  has ceased, contracts have been broken. The total damage is estimated  at 117 million drams. "We appealed to the ethics commission of  high-ranking officials and the Ministry of Finance, after they intend  to file a case in an administrative court," he concluded.

It should be noted that earlier the Ministry of Agriculture informed  about unprecedented volumes of export of horticultural crops, in  particular, apricots. So, according to the official statement of the  agricultural agency, as of July 11, 2018, the export of Armenian  fruit and vegetable crops demonstrated an unprecedented annual growth  of 78.5% to 101,492 thousand tons, including the export of apricots  increased by 55% to 44,131 tons.