On July 7, 2021, the RA Deputy Minister of Economy Arman Khojoyan, accompanied by Grigor Ghazaryan, the Head of the Food Security and Agro-Processing Development Department of the Ministry, visited “Dustr Marianna” LLC to get acquainted with the company’s activities and upcoming projects.

Together with the company’s Director Tigran Vardanyan, the Deputy Minister toured the workshops of the factory, got acquainted with the production capacities, and observed the processes of producing milk, sour milk products, cheese, and ice cream. The modern equipment installed in the workshops allows to produce high quality milk, matsoon, sour cream, cheese, milk powder, butter, ice cream, and other dairy products.

The company’s founding director Tigran Vardanyan informed that currently the company is stocking up and processing about 80-90 tons of milk per day. At the moment, milk is being bought for 150 Armenian drams per liter, and in the coming days the price of milk is intended to increase.

In near future it is planned to launch new workshops and expand the variety of dairy products produced at the factory. By the company’s initiative, a machine-building factory will be established soon, where modern processing equipment will be produced and production of milk sugar (lactose) will be organized, for which a special workshop has already been established and equipped with modern equipment imported from abroad.

During the visit, Arman Khojoyan and Tigran Vardanyan discussed a number of issues related to improvement of the agro-processing sphere. Problems related to simplification of procedures of the program on subsidizing the interest rates of the loans provided to the agro-processing sector for purveyance of agricultural raw materials and targeted use of the loans provided by this program were discussed.

The Ministry officials and the company’s Director also discussed issues related to VAT on sale of agricultural products. According to Tigran Vardanyan, the revision of VAT will greatly contribute to the increase of the processing companies’ efficiency. In response, Arman Khojoyan informed that at the moment works are being carried out to review the sector’s tax policy.

Special reference was made to improvement of the farm animals’ diet and diversification of production of combined fodder, establishment of the animal fodder base, as well as organization of hydroponic fodder production.

During the conversation Arman Khojoyan assured that the RA Ministry of Economy is ready to study all proposals and remarks of the business entities aimed at improving the current state assistance programs and solving the existing problems of the agro-processing sector.

The company’s products are sold in the markets of Armenia and Artsakh, are exported mainly to Russia and partly also to Georgia. In near future, the company intends to initiate exports to European countries as well.