Ameria Management Advisory Services said today it has successfully completed the implementation of the “Economic Modelling and Feasibility” project as part of the “Rural Assets Creation Program.”
The purpose of the project was to support reduction of rural poverty by promoting sustainable production of fruit and nuts. It was implemented by the “Rural Areas Economic Development Programs Implementation Unit” SA under Armenian Government Staff PIU.
As part of the project Ameria helped identify seven fruit and nut crops cultivated in Armenia with the biggest commercial potential – grapes, apples, apricots, peaches, plumes, nuts and pears and develop an appropriate lending product for enhancing the fruit and nut production.
According to America, such targeted lending product was to make it possible for the small-scale rural farmers to obtain required funding from participating financial institutions under preferential terms and conditions.
Vahe Harutyunyan, the acting director of the Rural Areas Economic Development Programs Implementation Unit SA, noted that the purpose of the new lending project is to increase the capacity of small-scale producers and their income by promoting horticulture value chain (fruit and nuts).
"When designing this lending product we took into account the real needs of business entities, the specifics of biological cycles of each fruit, as well as the corresponding financial requirements. We took into account also the terms of the value chain through research of demand, production, storage, individual processing and large-scale sales of fruits," he said.
According to Harutyunyan, the implementation of this long-term loan program is expected to have a positive impact on the expansion of the financial capacity of economic entities and the growth of commodity production.
"This will assist reduction of rural poverty, and the lessons learned along with the positive results will be used in the future while implementing other fruit growing projects,' he added.
According to the research, agriculture has been a leading sector in the Armenian economy since 2010 in terms of its share in the GDP and its contribution to GDP growth rates. Agriculture employs almost 45 percent of the labor force in Armenia. Around 70 percent of farms, however, are small, with 1.3 ha of land on the average. The target of “Economic Modelling and Feasibility” project is small farms, in particular, farms with up to 3 ha area in high altitude regions.
Ameria is a leading consulting company in Armenia. It conducts extensive research in such areas as corporate restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, legal consulting, direct and portfolio investments, business planning, strategic and tax planning, financial consulting, public administration and reforms. Ameria advisory firm is part of Ameria Group, offering confidential and impartial independent consulting services in five areas: business, financial, accounting and tax, legal and investment consulting.
Source - http://arka.am
