Tuesday, February 25 2014

The monthly revenue of Armenia's IT sector amounts to 20 mln USD, CEO of the Union of IT Enterprises Karen Vardanyan said at a press conference on Monday. 

He said that though the IT sector is going to be topical within the next 15 years at least, it is hard to call it a priority now. He thinks that though the Government has declared IT a priority sector, the relations between the state and IT enterprises are not developed enough. It is not clear yet how and on what basis the so- called national brand of IT companies will be formed and promoted abroad. 

As regards the weak sides of the IT sector, Vardanyan said that 500 IT companies are employing 12,000 specialists, with 10,000 of them being engineers. He added that most Armenian companies are specializing in outsourcing and do not develop their own sale-oriented products.   
Meanwhile, Armenia's Economy Minister Vahram Avanesyan told ArmInfo that Armenia will be able to develop its own IT products only when its economy shows need for them. "And only then will we be able to sell them abroad," the Minister said. 

Vardanyan said that Armenia continues successfully exporting IT specialists even though in 2009-2013 personnel outflow dropped from 4.5% to 3%. "At first glance you may think that this is not a big figure, but the problem is that most of those people are specialists with at least 10-year experience and very high qualification," Vardanyan said.

UITE was founded by Migma, Algorithm, Link, ArmSoft, Arminco and Sedit in 2000 with a view to stimulate Armenia's IT sector.