YEREVAN, JANUARY 24, NOYAN TAPAN. Consistent work has been done in Armenia for development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the RA minister of trade and economic development Nerses Yeritsian said at the January 24 press conference. According to him, SMEs should become a driving force of prodictivity and economic growth. "Armenia has the opportunity to increase the share of small and medium enterprises' production in GDP to up to 60%," the mnister said, adding that SMEs with rapid growth of production which are likely to enter international markets will help achieve this index. By preliminary estimates of the ministry, the share of SMEs in GDP grew from 40.3% in 2006 to about 41% in 2007, exceeding twofold the 1999 level. The number of newly founded SMEs made over 14 thousand, thanks to which about 19.6 thousand new jobs were created, 52.8% of which or 10.3 thousand jobs were created in marzes. The share of SMEs in the country's exports made over 17%, while the number of employees of SMEs made up nearly 35% of the total number of the employed persons. The SMEs receiving state assistance (of a total of 400 million drams) transferred taxes, duties and other compulsory payments of more than 604 million drams (about 1.8 mln USD) to the state budget.

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