Serious Issues in the Sand Industry, Says Pashinyan

We have huge problems in the sand industry because this is one of the sectors that has serious transparency issues, and we face difficulties in solving these problems. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this during the opening of the "Armenia Mining Industry 2025" forum.

“When we are determined to take decisive steps, due to the volume of construction, we feel pressure very quickly from the construction sector, because it turns out that if we standardize everything, construction in Armenia will be at a standstill for quite some time. This is because there is a huge shadow in the sand sector, a shadow that travels along our streets and highways every day,” he emphasized.

The Prime Minister added that they have not yet found a way to confront this shadow, and it poses a significant challenge. “Not to mention that we are dealing with issues of public security and breaches of territorial integrity when it turns out that by extracting sand from the Araks River, we are actually reducing our country's territory—not us, but those who do it. We do not have many effective mechanisms for counteraction here. Overall, I think one of the biggest problems in the sector is its image,” Nikol Pashinyan explained. He further noted that many questions related to the sector have accumulated for both objective and subjective reasons and urged the forum participants to pay special attention to them.