News - Tadevos Avetisyan: Preliminary estimates show Karabakh suffers material losses worth $50 billion

MP for the opposition Armenia faction of the Armenian National Assembly Tadevos Avetisyan published an article, presenting the preliminary estimates of material losses that Nagorno-Karabakh suffers after coming under Azerbaijani control – a total of 50 billion USD.   “Until the 44-day war in 2020, for 20 years, the economy of the Republic of Artsakh had a double-digit average annual growth. In 2019, the GDP was about 343 billion drams; more than 900 million USD at the current exchange rate, the state budget was about 145 billion drams, more than 380 million USD at the current exchange rate. Around 300 mines operated in Artsakh, of which 83 are metal, 197 are non-metal, and five are fuel; 36 hydroelectric power stations were in operation,” he wrote. Further, he says that the number of business entities was around 16,000, of which 11,600 were individual entrepreneurs. As of January 1, 2020, the permanent population was 149,000 people. Around 60,000 people were employed in various sectors of the economy, of which around 45,000 were hired workers. There were 92 hotels operating in Artsakh. More than 42,000 international tourists visited Artsakh in 2019. “The areas of agricultural significance amounted to 580,000 hectares. In particular, the area of cereal crops was 80,000 hectares, from which about 140,000 tons of crops were obtained annually. Artsakh was self-sufficient in grain crops and exported about 25 percent of the crop to Armenia. Technical crops occupied 5,300 hectares, from which about 8,000 tons of harvest was obtained annually, orchards – 4,400 hectares, with an annual harvest of 8,600 tons. The number of large horned cattle was about 50,000 heads. There were about 5300 units of agricultural machinery, including about 1250 tractors, about 1500 trucks. Artsakh had 51 pre-school institutions, attended by around 4,000 children, 2,606 public schools with around 24,000 students, 20 vocational and art schools with 7,000 students, 10 libraries with 400,000 books,” wrote Tadevos Avetisyan.