Armenia's external economic relations — trade, digital services, people and capital

This article asks how far the value added generated by Armenia’s external economic activity can give rise to new industries and new demand at home. Since 2022, large volumes of goods, people and money have flowed into the Armenian economy from abroad, and part of them have flowed out again within a short time. The same figures for “exports”, “remittances” or “investment” answer that question very differently depending on whether goods produced in Armenia are leaving the country or merely passing through it, and on whether what stays at home is wages or profits. The article attempts to draw these distinctions from five angles — trade in goods, the digital balance, the movement of people, the movement of capital, and the structure of firms that raise funds abroad — and closes with the author’s view. Basic information on the country is collected in the previous article, “Armenia: the basics”, which this article takes as given. All figures are taken from published sources accessed on 22 October 2026.

The balance of payments as a whole

To begin, Table 1 sets out the main items of the balance of payments for 2022–2025, taken from the balance-of-payments table in the IMF’s review report. A footnote to the IMF table states that the table follows the BPM5 format (1). Financial account items follow the sign convention of the IMF table, in which net inflows are shown as positive and net outflows as negative. The standard BPM6 presentation is the net acquisition of financial assets minus the net incurrence of liabilities, under which net outflows are positive, so the signs are reversed (2).

Table 1. Armenia’s balance of payments (USD billion)

Item	2022	2023	2024	2025
Goods exports	5.91	8.87	13.22	8.53
Goods imports	7.72	11.29	15.41	11.59
Services exports	4.43	5.85	5.86	6.12
Services imports	2.73	3.77	4.39	4.65
Primary income (net)	−0.49	−0.63	−0.91	−0.87
Secondary income (net)	0.73	0.30	0.45	0.35
of which: private (mainly workers’ remittances)	0.80	0.52	0.43	0.41
Current account	0.14	−0.67	−1.20	−2.11
(% of GDP)	0.7%	−2.8%	−4.6%	−7.2%
Direct investment (net)	0.93	0.53	0.08	0.35
Portfolio investment (net)	−1.36	0.04	−0.16	0.24
Errors and omissions	0.06	0.25	0.53	0.82
Foreign exchange reserves (end of year)	4.11	3.61	3.69	5.08
External debt (% of GDP)	76.4%	64.0%	62.2%	57.7%

Source: balance-of-payments table (Table 2) of the IMF review report (1). Converted by the author from USD million to USD billion. The 2025 figures include estimates and are subject to revision.

Trade in goods expanded rapidly up to 2024 and contracted sharply in 2025. Services exports, by contrast, have been broadly flat since 2023 and have not swung nearly as much as goods. The current account deteriorated from a surplus in 2022 to a deficit of 7.2% of GDP in 2025. The IMF explains the 2025 deficit as reflecting strong domestic demand and the continued decline in transit trade, which had increased after the start of the war in Ukraine. It notes that capital inflows — among them direct investment (USD 605 million), long-term bank borrowing (USD 650 million), purchases of dram-denominated government bonds (USD 731 million) and errors and omissions of USD 816 million — exceeded the deficit, and that as a result the central bank purchased about USD 1.8 billion of foreign exchange in 2025 (1). Transit trade here means re-exports, as the IMF’s report of the previous year makes explicit with the phrase “transit trade (re-exports)” (3). Why the direct investment figure in the IMF’s text (USD 605 million) differs from net direct investment in Table 1 (USD 353 million) is not verified from the report in this article.

Trade in goods — separating re-exports from domestic production

Goods exports more than doubled, from USD 5.91 billion in 2022 to USD 13.22 billion in 2024, before falling back to USD 8.53 billion in 2025 (1). As Table 2 of the previous article showed, this expansion was centred on pearls, precious stones and metals, whose share of exports rose from 18.3% in 2022 to 61.3% in 2024 (4).

What lay behind it can be seen from press reports of customs data. In the first half of 2024 Armenia exported USD 4.1 billion (59 tonnes) of gold, 64% of it to the United Arab Emirates and the remainder to Hong Kong and China. Gold imports over the same period amounted to USD 4.4 billion; this was unprocessed gold, almost all of it imported from Russia (5). Trade in which imported gold is exported almost as it is raises exports and imports at the same time, while the value added remaining in the country is limited to the trading margin and to logistics and financial fees. The IMF, too, in explaining the widening of the current account deficit in 2024, points to the sharp contraction of transit trade — that is, of re-exports — in the second half of the year (3).

The composition of exports in 2025 makes the distinction clearer still. According to press reports of figures from the Statistical Committee, exports in 2025 were USD 8.4 billion, down 36.1% on the previous year. By product, precious stones and metals, including gold, diamonds and silver, shrank to USD 2.8 billion (down 64.5%), while mineral products, including copper concentrate, rose to USD 1.3 billion (up 18.9%) and processed food to about USD 1.3 billion (up 28.7%). Machinery and equipment, including mobile phones and household appliances, was almost unchanged at USD 1.3 billion (down 0.3%), and vehicles fell to USD 91 million (down 35.2%) (6). According to the World Bank’s monthly report, exports excluding precious metals and gems rose by 8.9% in 2025 (7).

As for the scale of goods produced in Armenia, the Ministry of Economy maintains that only exports of Armenian origin increased in 2025, reaching USD 4.5 billion, about 10% more than in the previous year (6). A simple comparison puts goods of Armenian origin at just over half (about 54%) of total exports of USD 8.4 billion, leaving about USD 3.9 billion that was not certified as being of Armenian origin. The Ministry’s definition of “origin”, however, is not verified in this article. Exports of machinery and equipment may also include re-exports of imported goods.

In mining, the IMF expects output from a new gold mine to add about 1.25 percentage points to growth cumulatively over 2026–27 (1). If this materialises, gold mined in Armenia will enter exports in place of re-exported gold. In the statistics both are “gold exports”, but the value added that remains in the country is entirely different.

The services balance and the digital balance

Services exports have been broadly flat at USD 5.8–6.1 billion since 2023 (1). For 2024, the IMF explains that arrivals of non-residents and tourists, which had increased after 2022, declined, and that the services surplus narrowed with them (3).

This article treats the digital balance as the combination of ICT services as defined in BPM6 (telecommunications, computer and information services) with receipts and payments of charges for the use of intellectual property. The boundary between these two items does not, however, coincide with the distinction between contract software work and a firm’s own products. Under BPM6, computer services cover not only customised software developed to order but also the sale and licensing for use of non-customised software supplied by download or similar means (whether paid for by periodic licence fees or a single payment), as well as application provision and hosting. Charges for the use of intellectual property cover royalties for patents, trademarks, franchises and the like and, in the case of software, payments for licences to reproduce or distribute it (BPM6, paragraphs 10.137–10.138, Table 10.4 and paragraphs 10.143–10.145) (2). When an Armenian firm sells or supplies its own software product to users abroad, therefore, much of the revenue is recorded as exports of computer services.

Table 2. Digital-related receipts and payments

Item	2019	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
ICT services exports (USD billion)	0.26	0.38	1.05	1.59	1.81	1.77
Charges for the use of intellectual property, receipts (USD million)	—	—	—	—	24.49	19.52
Charges for the use of intellectual property, payments (USD million)	—	—	—	—	30.42	5.71

Source: World Bank database (balance-of-payments basis) (8)(9)(10). Converted by the author from values in US dollars. ”—” indicates that the database has no value. ICT services exports are the values of the World Bank series (BX.GSR.CCIS.CD); under the World Bank’s definition, communications services include postal and courier services. Because BPM6 classifies postal and courier services as transport services (paragraph 10.82) (2), the coverage does not match ICT services as defined in BPM6.

ICT services exports more than quadrupled, from USD 0.38 billion in 2021 to USD 1.81 billion in 2024, and eased slightly to USD 1.77 billion in 2025 (8). Relative to total services exports in the same database (USD 5.85 billion in 2024), this is about 31% (the author’s calculation) (11). Receipts of charges for the use of intellectual property, by contrast, were about USD 24.5 million in 2024 and about USD 19.5 million in 2025, a little over 1% of ICT services exports (9). Given the recording rules set out above, all that this small figure shows is that Armenia’s digital receipts consist of transactions recorded as computer services rather than of payments for licences to reproduce or distribute software or of patent royalties. It is not evidence that the intellectual property in the products belongs abroad. The database has values for charges for the use of intellectual property only from 2024 onwards, and the reason why payments changed so much, from about USD 30.4 million in 2024 to about USD 5.7 million in 2025, is not verified in this article (10). The sources checked for this article contained no annual figures for imports of ICT services, so the import side of the digital balance is not shown.

Estimates of the IT industry’s exports differ widely from one set of statistics to another. The German Economic Team (GET) estimates ICT services exports in 2024 at USD 2.034 billion from firm-level tax data and compares this with the official balance-of-payments figure (USD 1.181 billion) (12). GET’s estimate is an industry-based figure, compiled by aggregating tax data according to firms’ sector of activity (NACE), and differs in concept from the balance of payments, which classifies by type of transaction. The official figure cited by GET also does not match the balance-of-payments figure in the World Bank database (USD 1.81 billion); the reason is not verified in this article. GET’s estimate is about 1.1 times the World Bank figure and about 1.7 times the official figure cited by GET (the author’s calculation). The IMF also notes that work is under way with the authorities to improve the capture of services exports and of the cross-border activity of IT firms registered in Armenia (3). Either way, GET’s estimate is about 1.1–1.7 times the balance-of-payments figures (the author’s calculation) (12)(8), and the level of the IT industry’s exports can vary considerably depending on which statistics are used.

For international transactions in crypto-assets, no separate category can be identified in the balance-of-payments tables published by the central bank. The annex to the draft seventh edition of the Balance of Payments Manual (BPM7) that summarises the changes from BPM6 treats crypto-assets without a corresponding liability that are designed to act as a general medium of exchange, or as a medium of exchange within a platform or network (such as bitcoin), as non-produced non-financial assets, recorded in a separate category of the capital account. Crypto-assets with a corresponding liability are treated as financial assets. Because crypto-assets are still new, the same document leaves their classification as a subject for further research (13). The text of the final version is not verified in this article. On the institutional side, Armenia has enacted a law on crypto-assets, which the IMF regards as seeking a balance between legal certainty and the development of the industry while addressing risks ranging from financial crime to market integrity and consumer protection (3). Rules on stablecoins, set as a structural benchmark for April 2026, were not adopted by the deadline; the Ministry of Finance and the central bank have reached the stage of sharing a draft with the IMF (1).

The movement of people

The IMF describes the expansion of the Armenian economy after 2022 as boosted by inflows of foreign currency, migrants and firms from Russia, with real growth averaging 8.9% a year over the previous three years (3). In the IMF’s table of selected indicators, net migration as a share of the population was 0.3% in 2022 and 2.5% in 2023, and −0.6% in both 2024 and 2025 (1). The 2023 figure appears to include the inflow of refugees from Karabakh described in the previous article. The IMF points out that refugees and migrants from Russia have enlarged the working-age population, while structural unemployment, concentrated among young people, skills mismatches and low labour force participation persist (3).

Employment in the IT industry reflects this inflow most clearly. According to GET’s estimates, the number of IT-sector employees (salaried workers) rose from 19,000 in 2021 to 36,700 in 2023 and then levelled off at 36,500 in 2024. Individual entrepreneurs increased from 1,139 to 7,878 over the same period, and the combined total of about 44,000 raised the sector’s share of total employment from 1.9% in 2021 to 3.8% in 2024 (12). The 2021 figure of 1.9% is the value shown in GET’s chart. In its summary on the same page GET gives 3.0% for 2021, but in the chart 3.0% corresponds to 2022. GET considers it likely that some of the IT specialists who came from Russia have been absorbed into the domestic labour market, particularly as individual entrepreneurs.

The effect on wages has also been large. The average monthly wage in the IT sector nearly doubled, from USD 1,323 in 2021 to USD 2,578 in 2024, 3.5 times the economy-wide average (USD 731). The appreciation of the dram contributed to the growth in dollar terms; in dram terms the increase over the same period was 52% (12). Wage increases were not, however, confined to the IT sector. According to GET’s chart, the economy-wide average monthly wage also rose by about 80%, from USD 405 in 2021 to USD 731 in 2024, not far short of the IT sector’s increase (about 95%) (12). Economy-wide nominal wage growth was high, at 15.3% in 2022 and 14.7% in 2023, and slowed to 6.4% in 2024 and 5.6% in 2025. Over the same period unemployment fell only slightly, from 13.5% in 2022 to 13.0% in 2025 (1). For the combination of broad-based wage increases and unemployment that does not fall, the IMF points to structural unemployment, concentrated among young people, and skills mismatches (3).

The inflows also showed up in housing prices. The IMF explains that housing prices rose substantially in 2022–24 as migrants from Russia arrived after the start of the war in Ukraine and, from 2023, Armenian refugees from Karabakh followed. The average price per square metre of apartments in Yerevan then turned down in July 2025, after 50 consecutive months of year-on-year increases (3).

There is also a flow in the other direction, of people working abroad. Personal remittances (receipts) in the balance of payments comprise personal transfers, net compensation of employees and capital transfers between households. Net compensation of employees is the compensation earned by working abroad less taxes and social contributions paid in the economy of employment and the travel and related expenses of short-term workers (BPM6, Appendix 5, paragraphs A5.10–A5.12) (2). This compensation of employees includes not only income from short-term work abroad but also the compensation of residents who work in Armenia while employed remotely by employers abroad. Payments received by individual entrepreneurs for services supplied to clients abroad, on the other hand, are not included in personal remittances but are recorded as services exports (paragraph A5.13). According to the World Bank database, personal remittances received rose from USD 1.56 billion in 2021 to USD 2.12 billion in 2022, fell to USD 1.40 billion in 2024 and stood at USD 1.57 billion in 2025 (14). Since personal transfers accounted for USD 0.99 billion of this in 2025 (15), the remaining USD 0.58 billion or so corresponds mainly to net compensation of employees (the author’s calculation). By the same calculation, the difference was about USD 0.92 billion in 2022, about USD 0.64 billion in 2023 and about USD 0.51 billion in 2024, so the 2025 figure is a little over 60% of that for 2022. The 2022 figure in dollar terms also appears to have been affected by the appreciation of the Russian rouble.

On the institutional side, a law on state support for the high-technology industry, covering the period from 2025 to 2031, has come into force. Subject to certain conditions, it provides, among other measures, for a 1% tax on turnover in place of profit tax (18%) and value added tax (20%), a 10% income tax on the salaries of specialists and research and development staff, and reimbursement of 60% of the income tax paid in respect of labour migrants (12). Taxes paid by the IT sector amounted to USD 387 million in 2024, or 6.3% of total tax revenue, which is lower than the sector’s share of gross value added (8.3%) (12).

The movement of capital — remittances, direct investment, portfolio investment and external debt

The first thing to bear in mind when reading financial flows is that the two sets of “remittance” statistics measure different things. The central bank’s monthly statistics on “money transfers of individuals through commercial banks” cover all cross-border transfers made in the names of individuals, whatever their nature, including those made through money transfer operators. Of these, “non-commercial” transfers are funds without a counterpart, such as support for living expenses, donations, allowances and pensions, and exclude funds for the purchase of real estate (16). Personal remittances in the balance of payments, by contrast, comprise personal transfers, net compensation of employees and capital transfers between households, as described in the previous section. The former may also include funds in individuals’ names that settle trade or investment.

In 2022, USD 5.19 billion was sent to Armenia through banks, USD 3.6 billion of it from Russia. In the same year individuals sent USD 2.607 billion abroad through banks (17), giving a net inflow of about USD 2.58 billion (the author’s calculation). Comparing gross receipts, the USD 5.19 billion sent through banks is more than twice the personal remittances received in the balance of payments for the same year (USD 2.12 billion). The gap shows how far the two definitions diverge. Later, according to the World Bank’s monthly report, net inflows of non-commercial transfers were USD 714 million in 2025, up 53.5% on the previous year but below the USD 880 million of 2023. In December 2025, inflows from Russia accounted for 52% of the total (18).

Net direct investment inflows fell sharply, from USD 0.93 billion in 2022 to USD 0.08 billion in 2024, and were USD 0.35 billion in 2025 (Table 1) (1). According to the IMF, the share of direct investment in Armenia’s external liabilities in 2024 has been stable at about 35%. In 2024 the net international investment position was −48.5% of GDP, and most of the gross liabilities (85.6% of GDP), namely 63.9% of GDP, were debt liabilities (3). Because intercompany lending within direct investment is also counted among debt liabilities, the two ratios partly overlap. According to press reports of the Statistical Committee’s foreign investment statistics, total inflows of foreign investment rose from AMD 29.8 billion in 2024 to AMD 34.5 billion in 2025. The same report also gives outflows by country and sector, and the total appears to be net of outflows, but the Statistical Committee’s original tables are not verified in this article. By country and sector, inflows and outflows run in both directions. Investment from the United States in the information technology sector, for example, fell from AMD 10.2 billion to AMD 8.8 billion (19).

Throughout this period, the banking sector was at the centre of these flows. The IMF’s analysis is that, in 2022–2024, large capital inflows came through the banking and private sectors, while funds of almost the same size went into investment abroad and acted as a buffer. In the two years after the war began, capital inflows through the banking sector reached 7.7% of GDP, while the sector’s investment abroad exceeded 8% of GDP. More than half of the capital inflows to the private sector were also channelled into investment abroad (3). In other words, much of the money that flowed in did not turn into long-term domestic investment but went back out of the country as the banks’ foreign investment. The IMF also notes that maturity transformation of capital inflows (the use of short-term funds for long-term lending) was limited (1).

In the government sector, a USD 750 million eurobond was issued in March 2025 (3). Purchases of dram-denominated government bonds, which the IMF lists among the capital inflows of 2025, amounted to USD 731 million (1). Total external debt rose from USD 15.26 billion in 2022 to USD 16.19 billion in 2024, of which the public sector accounted for USD 6.70 billion (2024); the remaining USD 9.5 billion or so is therefore private-sector debt (the author’s calculation) (3). External debt as a share of GDP, on the other hand, fell from 76.4% in 2022 to 57.7% in 2025 (1).

On the current account side, primary income payments — that is, dividends and interest paid to foreign investors and compensation paid to non-resident employees — more than doubled in dollar terms, from USD 0.87 billion in 2021 to USD 1.82 billion in 2025 (20). Net of receipts, primary income showed net payments of USD 0.87 billion in 2025 (Table 1) (1); the figure coincides with gross payments in 2021, but it is a net value. Relative to GDP, however, payments rose from about 6.3% in 2021 to about 7.7% in 2022 and then stayed in the 6% range in 2023–25, at about 6.2% in 2025 (the author’s calculation using the World Bank GDP series) (21). They have not grown much relative to the size of the economy. These payments also include reinvested earnings, which foreign-owned firms retain in Armenia rather than distribute as dividends. Reinvested earnings are recorded as primary income payments and, at the same time, as a direct investment inflow of the same amount in the financial account, so they do not mean that money actually left the country (2). Interest on public debt is also included. Since the breakdown is not verified in this article, no judgement is drawn from these figures about how much money actually left the country.

Listing and fundraising abroad — where profits, intellectual property and jobs remain

Some firms have development operations in Armenia but place their headquarters and their fundraising abroad. As one example, consider the registration statement of ServiceTitan, a US software company founded by Armenian Americans. The company is incorporated in Delaware with its principal executive offices in Glendale, California, and on 18 November 2024 it filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (22). On 13 December 2024 the company reported that it had amended its certificate of incorporation in connection with the completion of its initial public offering (23). The registration statement names Armenia as one of the countries where its employees and development contractors are located and, among the challenges facing the business, refers to managing a global workforce that includes its growing team in Armenia (22). The list of subsidiaries includes a limited liability company incorporated in the Republic of Armenia (24).

Under such a structure, when an Armenian subsidiary provides development services to its parent, the payments for them are recorded in the balance of payments as exports of computer services. What remains in Armenia is chiefly domestic spending — engineers’ wages, the subsidiary’s profits and taxes, office rents and the like — while the intellectual property in the product, and the profits from selling it, accrue to the parent abroad. This is the author’s inference; the terms of individual firms’ transactions cannot be known from public documents.

The statistics say little about how far Armenia’s IT industry as a whole resembles this pattern. As noted in the section on the services balance, the small size of receipts of charges for the use of intellectual property is no evidence either way. A clue is offered by GET’s classification: of IT services exports excluding telecommunications in 2024, 94% belonged to outsourcing-type sectors, 4% to final-product-type sectors and 2% to consulting-type sectors, and GET regards the sector as driven almost entirely by outsourcing activity (12). This classification, however, mechanically assigns a type to each sector code (NACE): computer programming (62.01) and data processing on web servers (63.11) are counted as outsourcing, and software publishing (58.21, 58.29) and web portals (63.12) as final products. A firm developing its own products is counted as outsourcing if it is registered under 62.01, so the final-product share may be understated. GET itself states that a more detailed survey is needed for a fuller understanding (12). The figure suggests that outsourcing predominates but does not establish to what degree.

Opportunities to raise funds at home are limited. As described in the previous article, the equity market of the Armenia Securities Exchange (AMX) amounts to only a few per cent of GDP, and finance is centred on the banks. Raising funds abroad while developing in Armenia can be a rational choice for a firm. If the pattern in which the intellectual property and profits of products accrue to parents abroad is the dominant one, however, what remains at home as business expands will consist mainly of jobs and wages.

The author’s view

On the basis of these figures, the author’s view is that the part of the value added generated by Armenia’s external economic activity since 2022 that has created new domestic demand has done so mainly through economy-wide wages and the spending of the people who arrived, and that the channel through which new industries emerge from the domestic accumulation of intellectual property and profits remains narrow. This is a view about the structure of the economy, not an outlook for any particular firm, for assets traded in any market, or for the exchange rate.

First, most of the expansion in exports consisted of re-exports, and the value added remaining in the country was far smaller than the growth in exports. Goods of Armenian origin accounted for about USD 4.5 billion of exports in 2025, just over half of the total (6). And while the IT industry has increased its weight in both value added and employment, under GET’s classification most IT services exports excluding telecommunications belong to outsourcing-type sectors (12). Because that classification rests on a mechanical assignment of sector codes and may understate the product type, it only suggests that outsourcing predominates.

On the demand side, wage growth and the inflow of migrants pushed up domestic demand, and the rise in housing prices was one manifestation of this (1)(3). IT-sector wages alone, however, cannot account for much of the increase in demand. Calculated from GET’s figures, the total wage bill of salaried IT employees rose by about USD 0.83 billion, from about USD 0.30 billion in 2021 (19,000 × USD 1,323 a month × 12 months) to about USD 1.13 billion in 2024 (36,500 × USD 2,578 a month × 12 months) (the author’s calculation) (12). Over the same period, final consumption expenditure of households (including non-profit institutions serving households) rose by about USD 7.8 billion, from USD 9.90 billion to USD 17.73 billion (25), so the increase in the IT wage bill amounts to only about a tenth of it (the author’s calculation). It is more natural to see the main channels that raised demand as the rise in wages across the whole economy, not only in IT, and the spending of the people who arrived. Those migrants who arrived in 2022 and had not stayed for a year or more, and did not intend to, are treated as non-residents in the balance of payments (BPM6, paragraph 4.117), and their spending in the country is recorded as exports of travel services (paragraph 10.86) (2). Since the IMF cites arrivals of non-residents after 2022 as a factor behind the services surplus (3), the author regards this spending as another of the channels that supported domestic demand. In the form of demand for construction, real estate and services, value added has spread through the domestic economy.

On the financial side, moreover, the IMF reports that in the two years after the war began, an amount larger than the capital that flowed in through the banking sector (7.7% of GDP) went into that sector’s investment abroad (over 8% of GDP) (3). Maturity transformation of capital inflows was also limited (1). The part of the inflows that turned into long-term domestic investment appears to have been small.

This view could be overturned by indicators that can be checked. One would be a sustained rise, in data from the Statistical Committee or GET, in the share of profits (operating surplus) rather than wages in the IT sector’s value added. Another would be growth in patent applications filed by Armenian residents in the statistics of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). A third would be more cases of Armenian-owned IT firms acquiring firms or intellectual property abroad while keeping their headquarters functions in Armenia; outward investment in this sense needs to be distinguished from round-tripping through third countries and from capital flight. Because reinvestment by IT firms in Armenia appears in the balance of payments only as the reinvested earnings of foreign-owned firms, it would have to be confirmed through sustained increases in retained earnings in enterprise statistics and in domestic investment in equipment and in research and development (gross fixed capital formation and R&D expenditure). A further indicator would be the appearance of sources that measure the share of product-type firms through surveys of firms rather than sector codes, showing it to be higher than the outsourcing-based classification implies. If these came together, it should be concluded that value added has begun to accumulate at home as capital and intellectual property. As for the demand channel, if economy-wide compensation of employees (the income side of the national accounts) turned out to explain only a small part of the growth in household consumption, the main driver of domestic demand should be read as lying not in wages but in other channels, such as the spending of those who arrived or remittances. Conversely, if IT employment and exports remain flat, as they were in 2024, it becomes more natural to read the expansion of 2022–23 as a one-off shift in level brought about by the movement of people. Whether profit shares by industry can be obtained on a continuing basis from the Statistical Committee’s publications is not verified in this article.

This view is, however, heavily dependent on the limits of the statistics. For IT exports, GET’s estimate is about 1.1–1.7 times the balance-of-payments figures (the author’s calculation) (12)(8), and the IMF itself identifies the capture of IT firms’ cross-border activity as an issue (3). GET’s estimate is industry-based, whereas the balance of payments classifies by type of transaction, so the two differ in concept from the outset. The series on charges for the use of intellectual property covers only two years, and no separate category for crypto-asset transactions can be identified in the balance-of-payments tables published by the central bank. The two remittance statistics differ in definition, and direct investment likewise has two series, one in the balance of payments and one from the Statistical Committee. That errors and omissions in Table 1 reached USD 0.82 billion in 2025, close to 40% of the current account deficit, also indicates that there are flows of money the statistics do not fully capture (the author’s calculation).

Reading the statistics and sources

Table 3 summarises where the main sources used in this article can be found.

Table 3. Where the main sources can be found

Subject	Source	Caveats
Balance of payments, international investment position, external debt	Central Bank of Armenia (cba.am); tables in IMF review reports	A footnote describes the IMF balance-of-payments table as following the BPM5 format, and the financial account shows net inflows as positive (the opposite sign to the standard BPM6 presentation). IMF tables give values as of the time of preparation
Trade by product and by country	Statistical Committee (armstat.am) and press reports of its data	Totals include re-exports. Figures for goods of Armenian origin are announced by the Ministry of Economy
ICT services, charges for the use of intellectual property	World Bank database (balance-of-payments basis)	ICT services include postal and courier services. Timing of revisions may differ from the central bank’s figures. Charges for the use of intellectual property are available only from 2024
IT-sector value added, employment, wages and exports	GET reports (estimates based on tax authority data)	Industry-based figures aggregated by sector (NACE); conceptually different from the balance of payments
Money transfers of individuals through banks	Central bank monthly statistics	Total transfers regardless of their nature; distinct from personal remittances in the balance of payments
Foreign investment (Statistical Committee)	Statistical Committee (confirmed through press reports; original tables not verified)	A different series from direct investment in the balance of payments

Trade in goods is recorded gross, including re-exports; measuring the value added generated in Armenia requires looking separately at exports of Armenian origin or at exports excluding precious metals. “Remittances” and “investment” each have several series with different definitions, and before figures are compared it is necessary to check which series, and which definition, they come from. Estimates of IT exports also differ greatly in level from one set of statistics to another, and any judgement about the weight of the IT industry depends on which statistics are used. This article relies on sources published in English and on English-language press reports of them; it does not cover sources published only in Armenian. In this series, figures are given with their access dates and will be updated as they are revised.