First Deputy Minister of Economy Garegin Melkonyan has today said that all the 28 areas of economic cooperation formerly contained in the negotiated Armenia-EU Association Agreement will remain in the new EU- Armenia Agreement.

Garegin Melkonyan said that the 28 sectoral areas will be reconsidered but none of them will be eliminated from the new agreement.

“Association Agreement contained blocks on cooperation in political, legal and contractual and 28 sectoral areas. Apart from this, there was also Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) which envisaged mutual nullification of customs. Some elements of DCFTA, for instance, tariff privileges and customs nullification, wouldn’t be included in the new agreement taking into account Armenia’s commitments towards EEU. However, some sectors from the commercial-economic component of the agreement, for example, scientific and environmental cooperation, mining, economic dialogue, energy sector, financial services, tourism, agriculture, territorial development and other areas, will be retained. Intellectual property protection, quality of infrastructures, food security, customs cooperation and collaboration in dispute resolution will also be included from the DCFTA”, said Garegin Melkonyan.

He recalled that Armenia and EU held professional discussions back in early 2015.

“The aim was to discuss and understand what agenda can be established after Armenia's joining Eurasian Economic Union. In terms of negotiations, the discussions were useful, because now we have the notion of what we will be talking about and what we can include in the new agreement”, said the First Deputy Minister.

“Based on the previously negotiated package, today we have good prerequisites to rev up negotiations. I hope that the talks will be launched later this year”, said Garegin Melkonyan.