Trade openness of Armenia

Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located in Eastern Europe on the Armenian Highlands, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran to the south. It has an open small economy. The economy relies heavily on investment and support from Armenians abroad. Before independence, Armenia’s economy was largely industry-based – chemicals, electronics, machinery, processed food, synthetic rubber, and textile – and highly dependent on outside resources. The republic had developed a modern industrial sector, supplying machine tools, textiles, and other  Armenian mines produce copper, zinc, gold, and lead. The vast majority of energy is produced with fuel imported from Russia, including gas and nuclear fuel (for its one nuclear power plant); the main domestic energy source is hydroelectric. Small deposits of coal, gas, and petroleum exist but have not yet been developed. Armenian products are mainly exported to European Union, Georgia, Islamic Republic of Iran Russian Federation. Armena’s trade openness is introduced bellow. The data is from 2000 till 2017. The macroeconomic indicators are presented as percentage shares of GDP. Starting from 2000 Armenia’s trade openness increased till 2003, and then started to decline till 2008. After Great Recession (2007-2009, Bife.ba) it again stared to rise gradually till 2017. But in 2015 it dropped being affected by decrease of the import. What is remarkable here is that export started to increase starting 2009 (in 2009 most of the EU countries and the eurozone countries , which are the main trading partners of Armenia, have gone through a sharp decline in gross domestic product, Bife.ba).