YEREVAN, October 5. /ARKA/. The amount of remittances sent from Russia to Armenia is now even higher than a year ago, while in Georgia and Kazakhstan the situation is the opposite, says Russian Business Consulting (RBC) business news outlet.

The calculations covered the period from September 2022 to August 2023, the amount of money transfers was converted into rubles at the exchange rate for a particular month, said RBC.

In August 2023, Russians transferred to Armenia an amount equivalent to 32.8 billion rubles, or 618.9% of the average monthly volume of transfers in 2021 (i.e. 7.2 times more). For comparison, in September 2022, this indicator amounted to 24.8 billion rubles (467.9%), in October – to 29.7 billion rubles (560.4%).

The Central Bank of Armenia's statistics covers capital flows quite comprehensively, as it takes into account cross-border money transfers of individuals and sole proprietors through the banking and money transfer systems.

 A total of 322.1 billion rubles were transferred from Russia to Armenia from September 2022 to August 2023. Monthly transfer volumes ranged from 19.6 billion rubles (in January 2023) to 44 billion rubles (in February 2023).

For comparison: on average, about 5.3 billion rubles were transferred to Armenia from Russia every month in 2021.

Significant inflows of money from abroad strengthen the Armenian dram and may even provoke Dutch disease, warned analysts at the Eurasian Development Bank. In the case of Armenia, this is largely ensured  by money transfers from Russia. At  the end of 2022 there were 99 thousand non-residents in the country, 51 thousand of whom were those who arrived after the Ukraine war, who work mainly in the IT sector.

In 2022, some 110 thousand Russians came to Armenia and stayed to live, said the country's Minister of Economy Vahan Kerobyan. Also, according to his data, 2.5 thousand legal entities with Russian participants and another 4 thousand IEs were registered last year. The staff of some companies is  600-700 people, the minister noted.

Armenia has become a popular destination for Russian IT specialists who still reside there, says Konstantin Suvorov, a partner at Kosenkov & Suvorov law firm.

"The financial systems of Russia and Armenia are quite strongly integrated, Armenia also works quite extensively with Russian Mir cards, unlike other countries, so Armenia can act as an important financial hub for relocated Russians or Russians using foreign accounts in other countries. By sending money to Armenian bank cards, they send it send it further to other banks and countries using familiar tools and infrastructure, including through the SWIFT system," explains Yegor Krivosheya, head of the Blockchain and Fintech Lab at the Skolkovo School of Management.-0-