Crisis thins down migrants from Armenia to Russia

The world economic crisis will tell negatively on Armenia, first of all, in such areas like reduction of money transfers and return to Armenia of a part of seasonal construction labour force from Russia. This was stated to journalists by Gagik Eganyan, head of the Migratory Service at the Ministry for Territorial Management of Armenia.

Mr Eganyan has noted that 85 percent of transfers arrive to Armenia from Russia, 4 percent - from the States, and only about two percent - from European countries.

According to the researches conducted by the OSCE, every year in spring from 60 to 80 thousand workers used to leave Armenia for Russia to get employed in seasonal works. It is supposed that this year, because of the crisis, this number will sharply go down.

Grigor Voskanyan, economic observer for the newspaper named "Chorod Ishkhanutyun" (Fourth Power), remarked in his publication on February 28 that nobody doubted that the construction industry would be among the first to get affected. In his opinion, usually the industry came to life with the start of the spring season, but this year it can hardly be expected.