YEREVAN, September 26. /ARKA/. Economist Vilen Khachatryan has blamed today the decline in foreign direct investments in the Armenian economy over the last 7 months on both internal and external factors.

Speaking at a news conference he said the amount of investments from Russia has slashed by 27 billion drams, and investments from Cyprus decreased by 2.4 billion drams.  In 2015, investments from Cyprus stood at 10.9 billion drams, according to Khachatryan.

He said investments in the power and gas supply sectors have slashed by 24 billion drams, while investments in the production of basic metals fell by 10 billion drams.

Khachatryan said the dramatic decline in foreign direct investment is due to internal problems of the country, and lack of trust on part of investors.

"These are the main problems facing the new government which is determined to improve the investment environment of the country. Attraction of investments is a priority for the new government."  Khachatryan said.

Regarding cooperation in the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), Khachatryan said except for Russia, the rest of the EEU member states are not interested in Armenia in terms of investment.

Armenia may expect serious investments only from Russia, which has already invested over 2 trillion drams in the Armenian economy. Other major investment partners are Germany (582 billion drams), France (494 billion drams) and Cyprus (362 billion drams).

Overall direct foreign investments in Armenia over the last 25 years amounted to 5 trillion and 661 billion drams (about $10 billion). -0-