Basic figures of IT branch in Armenia

According to the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development of the Republic of Armenia, the dominating figures of the IT branch are the following:

• about 120 enterprises actively work within the branch;
• general number dealing with the branch makes more than 4000 people;
• average annual salary of programmers makes 3600-7200 US dollars;
• annual volume of production is estimated about 55-60 million US dollars approximately 98% of which is exported;
• share of IT branch of the gross domestic product makes 1.7%;
• volume of production annually grows approximately by 12%.
  

Why develop IT in Armenia?

Armenia today is a landlocked country, and according to its geopolitical situation, the development of IT is of utmost importance. Because of the lack of natural recourses, Armenia should appreciate its human recourse and invest in a field that would use human capital to the best of its capacities: IT is such a field. Developing IT in Armenia has the following advantages: research potential corresponds to the world standards in the field of informatics, physics and mathematics; there are highly skilled experts; labor force is cheap; the branch favors state support; Armenian communities are present in Europe and Northern America. IT also promotes creation of workplaces. In Armenia, employment in the IT sector reaches more than 4000 experts, among them computer programmers and computer scientists-engineers (67%), system analysts (6.57%) and experts of computer equipment (20%), teachers of IT in IT educational institutions (6.5%). Taking into account also the experts involved in other branches of economy, the employment reaches up to 6000 person (Article title: “Information Technologies,” 2007).
As it has already been mentioned, the development of IT is also advantageous in terms of export. The IT branch of Armenia annually exports production and services for approximately 58 million US dollars to more than 20 countries of the world. Most of the production and services is exported to the USA and Canada, with Russia and the countries of CIS ranking as the second place. Factors hampering export value growth are; the deficient awareness of the international business community about Armenia and Armenian IT branch; remoteness of Armenia from basic IT markets (at the present only 10 domestic companies have provided partial representation abroad).