We Are Suffering Significant Losses in This Regard: Kerobyan on the Lars Issue

The issue of long queues at the Upper Lars border checkpoint remains extremely severe, causing significant losses for Armenian freight carriers, exporters, and importers. The government is working to address this issue with its Russian and Georgian partners. This was stated by Armenia's Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan during a joint session of permanent committees while discussing the annual report on the execution of the 2021 state budget, in response to a question from MP Gevorg Papoyan.

“The problem related to Lars remains very serious. We continue our efforts with our Russian and Georgian partners to return to a normal working regime as swiftly as possible, especially as we are entering the agricultural product season, and it is essential that transportation hubs operate smoothly,” said Kerobyan.

The minister noted that he would meet with Russian partners at the Lars checkpoint on June 11 to understand on-site how to expedite the process. Russian partners assure that customs procedures are being carried out as quickly as possible.

“However, we see that the problem has not been fundamentally resolved. Our carriers, producers, exporters, and importers are suffering significant losses in this regard,” Kerobyan said.

Speaking about the planned ferry service, he mentioned that a meeting had recently taken place with transport organizations and the ferry operator, where they coordinated the working procedures. Currently, only one issue remains to be resolved to initiate our operations.

“This is the permission from the Georgian government to utilize their ports. They have several observations. In our opinion, these have been fully addressed. We are waiting every minute,” Kerobyan noted.

According to the plan, regular ferry services are expected to commence on June 15. The minister is confident that this will allow the issues of highly perishable goods and heavier items to be removed from the agenda. Although the ferry's capacity is not sufficient to transport all fresh and quickly perishable products, he assured that they are also working on rapid transit mechanisms through the Upper Lars checkpoint so that Armenian cargo, categorized as EAEU cargo, goes through faster procedures.